install 2.6.3 on debian 7 (64bit)

[Xavier Lagraula]

Hello,

Xavier here, still quite the newbie when it comes to GnuCash. But I have
been a long time user of Linux in general and Debian in particular, both
for personal and profesional uses. I'll try to answer from that
perspective, as my first post on this list. Hi everyone, BTW ;)

Installing outside the package management process, be it using precompiled
binaries or from source (I don't know what's found in the tar.gz you're
mentioning) is usually not worth it unless there is no other way to achieve
what you want or if your goal is to tamper/experiment, and eventually break
things.

My bet is that your goal is to have a stable install of the latest version
of GnuCash to actually use it, with as less hassle as possible. Considering
that Debian (and its offspring) is my distro of choice primarily because of
its package management system of many wonders, I would strongly recommend
you use a proper DEB file to avoid breaking it. Or even better, that you
let it find, download and install the proper package for you.

Now, the issue here is that the packages you are linking to are made for
Ubuntu, and not Debian. As similar as the package repositories of those two
are, there is still a risk to break your system by trying to forcefully
install these.

Now, if you search the official Debian package repository, you will
discover that GnuCash 2.6.3 is indeed available, but in a "testing" version.

https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=gnucash&searchon=names&suite=testing&section=all

There are several ways to install such a package on your system : upgrading
your whole system to "testing" (risky, less stable, forget it) and 4 ways
to mix "stable" with some parts of "testing".

http://www.macfreek.nl/memory/Mixing_Stable_and_Testing_in_Debian (not for
the faint of heart)

Fortunately the first, least risky and most simple option of all is
available in this case, i.e. an official GnuCash 2.6.3 package, compiled
against the libraries available in Debian "stable" ("backported" to Debian
stable). For reference it can be found in the official debian-backports
repository here but you shouldn't need to download it manually :

https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=gnucash&searchon=names&section=all&suite=wheezy-backports

Instructions on how to configure your system to let it use backported
packages seamlessly can be found here, in the "Where to start" section:

http://backports.debian.org/

I did not try it myself for GnuCash (currently running it on Win7, forced
by the circumstances), but from my experience this is the way to go.

Best regards,
  Xavier

2014-07-03 9:19 GMT+02:00 tereque <tereque at gmail.com>:

> I want to install 2.6.3 on debian7 (64 bit) but don't get around it really
>
> somewhere I was pointed to this: http://build.getdeb.net/
> ubuntu/pool/apps/g/gnucash/
> Now I am wondering whether to choose a .deb file (and if so, which one) or
> one of the .tar.gz (in shich case I was not sure how to actually install
> that)
>
> Can anyone help? Or point to any howto somewhere?
>
> thanks
> <http://build.getdeb.net/ubuntu/pool/apps/g/gnucash/
> gnucash-common_2.6.3-1%7egetdeb2_all.deb>
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