[GNC] cannot build gnucash 5.14 and later

[John Ralls]

> On Jun 28, 2026, at 19:08, Mark Sattolo <epistemik at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Have built my own executables on Linux Mint for a while now.
> No problems through gnucash 5.13.
> But with gnucash 5.14 and subsequent the build now fails on running 'ninja'
> or 'make'.
> I just stuck with gnucash 5.13 for the past while but now it feels like I'm
> falling too far behind the newer versions.
> 
> The problem seems to be something to do with linking libboost properly? But
> the only solutions I can find online recommend tinkering with
> CMakeLists.txt to specify explicit linking of the libboost 'system' and
> 'filesystem' modules... but it doesn't seem like I should have to do that
> to get it to build. And I'm not familiar enough with CMake to figure out
> exactly what I should do anyway.
> Not sure why there is a problem since 5.14 when it went fine for all the
> previous versions.
> 
> I include my printouts showing that the gnucash build-dep is fine. That
> libboost is there. And the actual error reports from 'make'.
> 
> Anyone know what has happened and how to fix it?

Mark,

libbboost-all-dev  installs the liibboost dev packages but not the library packages. Libboost-filesystem-1.83-dev installs /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_filesystem.so <http://libboost_filesystem.so/> but libboost-filesystem-1.83.0 installs /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_filesystem.so <http://libboost_filesystem.so/>.1.83.0. The former—without the version number—is typically just a symlink to the latter. Do you have both files installed and if not is libboost_filesystem.so <http://libboost_filesystem.so/> a dynamic library or a symlink?

If that checks out OK, grep boost in CMakeCache.txt and run ldd on ${builddir}/lib/libgnc-core-utils. <http://libgnc-core-utils.co/>so to make sure that the right version of libboost_filesystem is found (CMakeCache.txt) and linked to libgnc-core-utils (ldd output). If *that* checks out then run nm on libboost_filesystem.so <http://libboost_filesystem.so/> and see if those missing symbols are present.

Regards,
John Ralls