[GNC] Linux Mint 18.2 Sonya and Gnucash 3.2

[Adrien Monteleone]

Thanks Tommy,

The build of 3.2 for 16.04 was simple enough a couple of days ago. (partly because I’d built before on that vm so most everything was already there dependency-wise) The updated instructions certainly are helpful, but I did have to read and re-read them several times as the wording in some places was a little odd or not particularly in a “Step 1,2,3” fashion. (not always easy when building because of the myriad of variances on individual systems and of course, builder preferences)

Perhaps maybe a “here’s how to build yourself if you’ve never held a hammer” and then a “if you’re an old hat, here’s the particulars you can get your own mileage out of” sort of approach will help more less seasoned users obtain a more recent version with the least amount of effort. The current instructions are a VAST improvement, but they still try to be all things to all compiling users in one go, but we truly have vastly different skills levels and thus audiences for this material.

So, on backporting, I just successfully built. I can recreate my command sequence from my bash history. I suppose there is an official *buntu link/process to request and demonstrate a successful backport. I’ll add it to one of my burners along with possibly a build script for the newbies unless someone wants to take that. As I was building, my thought was that this could easily be scripted to prompt for preferences and check and install needed dependencies and shouldn’t be that difficult. I’ve never written an install script like this and always did things the hard way, but if anyone else reading has done this before, please look over the Ubuntu building pages and see if something is possible here.

Regards,
Adrien

> On Aug 2, 2018, at 11:33 AM, Tommy Trussell <tommy.trussell at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Jul 31, 2018 at 1:45 PM Adrien Monteleone <adrien.monteleone at lusfiber.net> wrote:
> Thanks for the run-down.
> 
> So simply a case of Universe not pulling an update from Sid yet then? (or will that never happen and each release’s Universe is always tied to Testing? and then Stable, etc.) I know there is a separate backports repository as well. Perhaps that’s a better solution?
> 
> Regards,
> Adrien
> 
> 
> Ubuntu works on the premise that you have well defined releases every six months, with processes for updating individual packages in special cases. The vast majority of packages get copied from Debian at a particular time, then forever that "snapshot" is a part of a particular Ubuntu release as its "universe" repository. If an individual package urgently needs an update (due to a security exploit or a data-losing bug) there is a process to push a change into an appropriate repository, but the resources for that process are fairly limited.
> 
> If you look at   https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnucash  you'll see that the 3.2 version of GnuCash hasn't yet made it into the Cosmic Cuttlefish release (18.10, due in October) because it's still working its way through the Debian release process.
> 
> Yes, the backports repository is easily available AND the process can be a lower hurdle for updates. It does still take a little effort -- the person requesting the backport requests (or they themselves do) a backport of a package on a standard Ubuntu system. The process involves providing evidence that the backported package builds and runs as expected, and the backport volunteers certify and approve the packages for inclusion.
> 
> It's very easy to enable the backports repository, so this might be a good way to provide an updated GnuCash. 
> 
> I'm not sure whether any other distributions use the Ubuntu Backports repository. Mint might.
> 
> P.S.: I wish I could recommend the snap or flatpak versions of GnuCash, but I don't think either has a well established network of folks keeping those releases debugged and up to date. So (much like the getdeb repository) whatever you see there was likely compiled by a committed individual, not a team. 
> 
> Maybe someone will create GnuCash wiki pages with instructions simple enough that any of us can help update flatpak or snap packages?
> 
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