[GNC] Linux Mint 18.2 Sonya and Gnucash 3.2

[Tommy Trussell]

On Sat, Jul 28, 2018 at 1:53 PM Michael via gnucash-user <
gnucash-user at gnucash.org> wrote:

> I just recently built Gnucash 3.2 on Mint 18.3 following the steps in
> the wiki instructions.  Did the dependencies, the googletest install,
> the build and finally gnc-fq-update.  It works just fine.  There are a
> lot of steps, but they seem to be correct.
>
> As an aside, Debian, Mint and Ubuntu folks haven't been keeping gnucash
> available in an up to date form for some time.  When I looked around I
> was surprised to find it is available in other distributions, at least
> the arch linux-related distros.
>

Just a little note of explanation -- Ubuntu gets GnuCash as a "snapshot" of
Debian "unstable" (aka "sid") a few months or weeks before Ubuntu's
twice-yearly release. It just so happens that there have been lots of
GnuCash releases in the past six months, and the Debian maintainer had not
yet succeeded in packaging a working version of any of the 3.x releases in
time for it to get copied to the Ubuntu LTS release.

SO that's why the latest Ubuntu supplies GnuCash 2.6.19. The NEXT non-LTS
release of Ubuntu due in October will likely get GnuCash 3.2 (or newer).

The lag is probably for the best, because several distros (such as some
flavors of Mint) base their releases upon the Ubuntu LTS (Long Term
Support) releases that get updated only every two years, and personally I
would rather see more folks see a more stable version of GnuCash from the
LTS such as 2.6.19 than 3.0 or 3.1.

For my purposes I'm pretty conservative in my expectations with GnuCash so
I have not pressed for getting 3.x in the current Ubuntu 18.04 "Bionic" LTS
repository. If enough folks felt GnuCash 3.2 to be solid enough and offers
enough of an advantage (OR folks believe GnuCash 2.6.19 has a major
show-stopping flaw) I would gladly help press an Ubuntu "MOTU" maintainer
to sponsor the upgrade.

MOST of the time, Ubuntu users can take a current Debian source package and
install it on the latest Ubuntu (OR any of the Ubuntu-derived
distributions), but there are a few dependent package changes this time.
This is why none of the Ubuntu-derived distributions have 3.x in their
repositories, AND why it's moderately unlikely the new GnuCash releases
will be "backported" to the previous Ubuntu 16.04 "Xenial" LTS, even though
that release is still supported for three more years. The difficulty may
also be a factor in why the GetDeb folks seem to have given up. Porting is
a lot more work than usual.

By the way, folks running Debian "unstable" (aka "sid") should have GnuCash
3.2 available. https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gnucash

I have never used Mint, but I believe some versions are based on Debian,
and maybe those include the most current release of GnuCash.



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