[GNC] How to install Gnucash 3.8 on Debian 10 "buster"?

[Adrien Monteleone]

You were also offered the option of installing the Flatpak. (with links)

Another option is that one user has kindly packaged it as a .deb and linked it here on the list, but you’ll have to do a list search for it. I think it was packaged for Ubuntu (based on testing) so it might not install on debian stable.

I’m not sure what level of stability you need for your system, but Ubuntu (as noted) and several other derivatives are based on debian testing repos. (or based on Ubuntu) While nothing is bug free (not even debian stable), they don’t fall apart either.

You might well encounter this issue with other software. I’d recommend reading up on exactly what Testing, Unstable and Stable mean with regards to debian. It isn’t as scary as you think.

Besides, you *are* asking how to install a package that is in the *testing* repo to begin with. And that is because they have a pretty strict date cut-off policy and they don’t fancy backports. Which means the Testing repo is full of packages like GnuCash 3.8 that run just fine, but simply missed the cut-off date for inclusion in debian 10. (but they will be part of debian 11)

Regards,
Adrien



> On Mar 8, 2020 w11d68, at 10:09 AM, km22 <km22 at gmx.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> Can anyone advise a very simple and safe way of install gnucash 3.8 in
> Debian 10?
> 
> I've read posts like this:
> https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/107689/how-do-i-install-a-single-package-from-debian-testing-or-unstable-on-stable
> 
> But I am very reluctant to start messing with things like pinning or
> temporarily enabling testing repo entirely for fear of breaking my system.
> 
> Is there a simple way to install just gnucash 3.8 and dependencies as a
> one-off without making riskier changes to my system?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Ken