[GNC] Old-New user with an upgrade problem

[John Angelico]

On Sat, 22 Aug 2020 at 23:59, Adrien Monteleone <
adrien.monteleone at lusfiber.net> wrote:

> The 'Kept back' list is something to focus on.
>
>    `sudo apt-get --with-new-pkgs upgrade`
>
> Should pull those in, *and* keep them as 'auto-installed'.
>
> If you install them one at a time, they will be marked as 'manually
> installed' which could be problematic later.
>
>
Ah, thanks, I'm learning more every day.

apt --with-new-pkgs upgrade did nothing, so I went looking online

Found discussion about dist-upgrade and realised that I had not done that.
Assessed the risks of removing packages and went for it.


> Since you went through two upgrades (from Jessie to Stretch to Buster)
> it would be a good idea to get all package issues resolved before too long.
>
> There are several commands and tools you can use to trace why packages
> are held, exactly what versions are installed, as well as reverse
> dependencies so you can see what can safely be removed if it is no
> longer needed. ('autoremove' doesn't catch everything) But all of that
> is far beyond the scope of this list. (it is a game of whack-a-mole anyway)
>
> And yes, if you downloaded the .deb of GnuCash originally, I'd remove
> it, and re-install.
>
> OK, that will be the next step.


> You have 3 options for re-install:
>
> 1. 3.4 from the standard Buster repo
> 2. Follow that Wiki link I gave earlier and use the buster-backports
> repo to get 3.10
> 3. Install Flatpak and then install GnuCash 4.1
>


> The 3rd option allows you to stay current with GnuCash but stay on
> Buster as long as it is officially supported.
>
> The 2nd option allegedly does this too, but it is 3 versions behind and
> it is unknown if additional backports will be made after 3.10.
>
> There is nothing wrong with the first option, but there have been seven
> versions issued since 3.4 in the 3.x series, and two in the 4.x series.
> It is quite old (nearly 2 years) and a few hundred or more bugs have
> been squashed since then along with many improvements in reports.
>

I will have a look at the home site to learn about the differences in
features before going to 4.x but yes, that will be the longer-term aim. I
sometimes prefer to stay a release or two behind the bleeding edge,
expecially if none of the bugs actually affect me.

I don't know much about Flatpack. It seems to be a development environment
but I''ll see how much extra load it may put onto my creaking old system :-)


> The only quirk to Flatpak that I'm aware of is that there are some
> special configuration considerations if you are using one of the
> database backends, as well as getting GnuCash to print to a physical
> printer. (both doable, but they won't work out of the box) See the Wiki
> for more info on getting the Flatpak version and any side issues.
>
>
Will do, and thanks again.

Regards,
John A