[GNC] Gnucash PPA version Vs Gnucash Flatpak

[Tommy Trussell]

On Wed, May 21, 2025 at 3:20 AM Chris Green <cl at isbd.net> wrote:

> On Wed, May 21, 2025 at 12:07:08PM +0530, Shashi Gupta wrote:
> > Can anybody tell me the difference in working with above mentioned
> > installation method. By the way presently I am using PPA version and have
> > no experience of flatpak version.
> >
> If you have (as you presumably have) added the PPA to your source
> lists in /etc/apt then GnuCash will be updated with everything else on
> your system when you do "apt update" and then "apt upgrade".
>
> If you use the flatpack you either need to update manually or use some
> mechanism other than apt.
>

Flatpak actually updates its packages itself (on its own schedule, but with
no interaction from the user) within a few hours, or at most a couple of
days, of the repository getting the latest GnuCash release. (Unless you
have used the flatpak mask command to suppress updates to the package.)

For GnuCash flatpak, the updates either come from a "central" repository
called flathub, or (if you are following the "nightly" development
versions) from a GnuCash.org server.

An end user can be forgiven for thinking of Flatpak, PPAs and standard
distribution repositories merely as different software sources. Ideally the
ones you choose are trusted and reliable, as well as actively updated.

The main difference between PPAs and Debian / Ubuntu standard repositories
is that PPAs have fewer eyes on them, so are theoretically more risky (in
the sense of corrupted or malicious packages). So I think anyone who uses
any PPA should consider the "chain of custody" between the original source
files and the PPA.

P.S.: GnuCash users on Linux should consider building GnuCash themselves,
because Linux makes short work of self-built packages. For one tiny
example, in Ubuntu, when a user creates a ~/bin directory, on the next
reboot it will automatically be in that user's command path. So when going
through the "Build on Linux" information on the GnuCash wiki, a user can
make it in ~/bin and will be all set, until the next release. (Just
uninstall the system-supplied GnuCash so there's no chance you run it
instead of yours.)


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