[GNC] [GNC-dev] Gnucash built from git doesn't start

[Adrien Monteleone]

My understanding was that some distros have already started their plans to do away with /usr/local and retain it as a symlink for backwards compatibility for now.

The very old days, /usr *was* ‘user’ but that has long since changed as individual user directories are now in /home.

/usr is for system binaries that are part of the distribution

/usr/local became a place to put your own *system* customizations. (say, install a different shell)

/opt was for user-land software not part of the default distribution

/usr/local is subject to getting stomped on by distribution updates, and might even disappear entirely in the future.

/opt seems to be the safe system-wide place to install your own builds. (I personally use this)

There is also always any path in /home or ~/, for stuff you want only your own user to be able to run.

It has been a few moons since I traversed that web rabbit hole though. Things might have changed.

Of course, if something works for you, there is no need to change it.

Regards,
Adrien

> On Oct 22, 2019 w43d295, at 8:55 PM, David Cousens <davidcousens at bigpond.com> wrote:
> 
> John,
> 
> I am curious as to what problems you have encountered installing to
> /usr/local and on what Linux distributions?  I have never had any problem
> installing there in Linux Mint 17, 18, 19 which presumably also includes the
> Ubuntu and Debian systems they are derived from but don't know about other
> distributions.  According to the Linux File Heirarchy standard this is where
> user software built from source should be installed.  The "sudo make
> install" currently installs the libraries, share and config files in the
> expected locations as follows:
> 
> /usr/local/bin/gnucash           main application
> /usr/local/etc/gnucash/environment   
> /usr/local/include/gnucash     gnucash heaader files
> /usr/local/lib/gnucash            gnucash libraries
> /usr/local/lib                           a few libraries associated with
> libgnc-backend, libgnc-core-utils, libgnc-gnome, libgnc-module 
>                                          and libgwengui-gtk3
> /usr/share/gnucash
> 
> Apart from requiring sudo privileges I have never encountered any problems
> installing there since I started using GnuCash in 2010.
> 
> David