[GNC] What is earliest version of Ubuntu for which building GnuCASH 3.0 is possible?

[Geert Janssens]

Op woensdag 18 april 2018 15:29:01 CEST schreef Steve Cohen:
> OK, so I have been using GnuCash 3.0 on Ubuntu for a couple weeks now
> and am broadly satisfied with it.  I built it and it works.  However,
> there's one thing I cannot figure out.  Where is the "launcher" for
> GNUCash and/or how do I build that.  As of now I have to navigate to the
> bin subdirectory where GNUCash was installed and invoke it from there.
> Is there a launcher and how do I tell Ubuntu about it?
> 
That's more general linux knowledge than gnucash knowledge...

There are two parts to this:
* for the command line, your shell will search for executables in a list of 
directories called "the path". This list is specified in environment variable 
PATH.
You can do 'echo $PATH' (without the quotes) to learn in which directories the 
shell will search.
If you installed gnucash anywhere but in the system default /usr/bin, chances 
are the system won't find it. The solution is to adjust the search path for 
executables. You can search the internet for plenty of examples how you can do 
that.

* For the graphical environment on the other hand, the "launchers" you mention 
are typically *.desktop files. These files hold some meta information on a 
program and also how to execute it. Gnucash is no exception: the build creates 
one such file in <install dir>/share/applications/gnucash.desktop.
However like the shell, your graphical environment will only look in standard 
directories and it's unlikely that is where you installed gnucash if you built 
it yourself. To remedy this, you can copy the desktop file to
$HOME/.local/share/applications, where your graphical desktop should pick it 
up.

There is a second issue with this desktop file though: it will try to run 
'gnucash' without a full path specification (like <install dir>'/bin/
gnucash'). This means your system will again fall back to part one: use the 
PATH environment variable to locate a gnucash executable. This can be fixed by 
either adjusting the "Exec" line in the desktop file to contain a full path or 
by setting the PATH variable. Which one to take is a bit personal preference 
and other system conditions (are there multiple versions of gnucash on your 
system for example).

Regards,

Geert