[GNC] GnuCash preferred OS - Windows or Linux

[R Losey]

On Tue, Jul 25, 2023 at 3:16 PM Ben Kamen <ben at benkamen.net> wrote:

> Hey all,
>
> Noob user here just getting started with GnuCash
>
> So --
>
> That being said, I have Linux systems. I have Windows system.
>
> But first, am I better off running it in Linux or Windows (It looks like
> the answer is Linux from what I've see of the Wiki).
>



Ben, welcome!

I have macOS, Linux (Ubuntu 22.04LTS), and Windows 10.  I love the fact
that GnuCash runs on all these platforms; I have my data stored on a
mirrored external drive, so all computers can see it.

As an OS, I like Linux the best.

However, unless one is willing to do one's own builds, you're rather stuck
with the distribution's version, which falls behind over time. I
think Ubuntu 22.04LTS comes with GnuCash 4.8, and it's up to 5.3. I'm
always a little worried about file compatibility between major versions, so
I tend to avoid running on Linux. One can use flatpack (flatpak?) to get
the latest version on Linux.... or, as I wrote, you can build GnuCash. I
ran into trouble doing this under a previous version of Ubuntu, and it left
GnuCash in in unusable state.

Thus, I rarely run GnuCash on Linux - it's usually WIndows or macOS.

If you can get GnuCash running on Linux, it's nice that Linux already has
perl, so one doesn't have to install a perl environment (should you care
about online quotes).


I gave up trying to get GnuCash to talk to various financial institutions;
I enter everything manually and routinely balance my accounts. It works for
me.


_________________________________
Richard Losey
rlosey at gmail.com
Micah 6:8