GNUCash on Puppy?

[asl4u]

Has there been any further consideration regarding making GNUCash work with puppy? Its been brought up a few times but the topic doesn't seem to stick.
I like Puppy - but I run my business using Quicken Home and Business and Lotus Organzier (synchs with my PDA/phone) - I'd love to get out from under Quicken and I could go Ubuntu with GNUCash - but I like puppy better -
so as of now - I'm waiting until either Puppy can do GNUCash - or someone ports it to windows.

Is anyone working on this?
Thank you
ASL4U

[rarsa]

I think that this thread will end up the same as the previous related threads

I suggest reading the previous threads in their totality so you can save us from repeating the same things:

Here is the summary:

- GnuCash requires a whole load of dependecies from Gnome.
- I don't see Gnome ever being part of the base puppy.
- There is already a package that includes many Gnome libraries and I've sugested people to try it. (No one has responded and that's usually where the thread dies)
- You could have Ubuntu with GNU cash installed in the one partition and Run puppy from a different partition and when you need GNU Cash, just chroot to the Ubuntu partition and run it.

[Nathan F]

You could also use Puppy's underdog feature over a Linux installation which has Gnucash installed.

Another possibility is to roll your own. I just recently became aware of the Amigo Linux project, and what is probably the single largest collection of gtk1 software on the net right now. They have all of the sources you would need to get Gnucash working and a pretty good set of instructions on how to do it all. See here and more specifically here for the sources and some tips on setting it up.

Time permitting I do intend to do this myself at some point, but don't expect me to get to it soon and definately don't ask me about it's status or PM me about it.

Nathan

[asl4u]

First -I want to than both of you for replying to my request. Thank you.

Rarsa... I HAVE read EVERY post on this board for the last several years- that have any reference to GNUCash. I did that before you made the suggestion that I do so - and indeed - before I registered and made this post. And yes, I am aware that the topic dies repeatedly... it also rises repeatedly... which suggests to ME that someone else - many in fact, would like to see GNUCash come into Puppy.
I posed the question to see if anyone had ever gotten around to it...
apparently not.

as for the suggestion that I simply use Ubuntu to run GNUCash... and then what?? use puppy for everything else??... what a waste of time.
I run a business - if I'm going to be using ubuntu part of the time - specifically for my invocing and accounting, then I'm going to be using ubuntu ALL of the time.

I like puppy. It is, after some 30 years of peeking over the fence at linux... the linux I like the best.

Nathan - what is an underdog feature?
and I would be interested in learning what I need to know.. to "roll my own"...
where do I start? What do I need to know? What do I need to have? ( I have read these posts for HOURs and hours... I have lots of info in my head space but nothing that ties it all together...

I tried your links - but neither of them work... I'll do a google on Amigalinux... and see what I find...

If I can understand it - I can do it. If I can ALMOST understand it - I can usually do it. I'm not entirely ignorant about computers and how they work. If it is chewed up and spit out in steps - then I can do it whether I understand it or not... and then I can go back and anaylyze the steps and come to understand it.

but I've not seen any steps... and I dont know enough about linux... to know where to start - not to mention that every time I have ever tried to play with it - I have crashed my computer... Linux doesnt seem to want me
But I have this Puppy.. and I really like Puppy. And I am wishing I could play with this puppy in real life - while I'm working...

for that - I need GNUCAsh and OpenOffice.org... and some kind of Calendar.
the only thing Puppy is missing is GNUCAsh.

if we wait long enough - GNUCash will be ported to Windows - and at that point the question becomes moot. I will - like most people - gravitate to whats most familiar.

thanks again
off on my search.
ASL4U

[rarsa]

I am just trying to explain the why and provide options, not sugesting that you should follow them.

I think that you have purposelly skipped the part that says GnuCash NEEDS the Gnome libraries.

You cannot have GnuCash without the Gnome libraries which are not small and don't fit puppy's size.

Whoever wants to use GnuCash will have to deal with Compiling and configuring all the Gnome dependencies required, not an easy task.

If you really need GnuCash then your best bet is too use a distro that already has it, such as Ubuntu or Fedora or Mandriva, specially if you want to run a business with it. Puppy is a personal desktop. You don't get the security/support required for a business.

The option to run GnuCash chrooted was just if you really wanted to use Puppy.

[ricstef]

Rarsa,
I don't think he realizes the extent of what is implied by the Gnome libraries' dependencies.
Please explain for my benefit, how you would chroot into the Ubuntu partition and run GnuCash there. Does that mean you don't have to reboot? And will I then be running under Ubuntu or Puppy? Can I chroot back and find everything as I left it or will things I left open before the chroot be shut down?

Thanks for your insights.
Richard.

[rarsa]

I don't think he realizes the extent of what is implied by the Gnome libraries' dependencies.

You may be right. I actually thought about that and that's why I explained that the libraries are large (as large as puppy itself) and that it is a time consuming task.

Please explain for my benefit, how you would chroot into the Ubuntu partition and run GnuCash there.

Here is from the top of my head (I'm not in linux right now). chroot is a very simple command

Code: Select all

chroot NEWROOT <COMMAND...>
e.g.
chroot /dev/hda2

I could go on and on talking about setting some configurations once chrooted but for what you want to do I'll just explain the easy steps.

1. Open an console window (rxvt)
2. Execute the chroot command specifying as NEWROOT the partition where Ubuntu is installed .
3. Execute the gnucash command.

Actualy you could even create a script in puppy to chroot and execute gnucash. If you drag the script to the desktop, the user can execute with a single click so it is transparent for the user. I haven't tried it but it should work

Code: Select all

chroot /dev/hda2 gnucash

Does that mean you don't have to reboot? And will I then be running under Ubuntu or Puppy? Can I chroot back and find everything as I left it or will things I left open before the chroot be shut down?

It is even better than any of your guesses.

When you execute the chroot command it creates a chrooted session just in that rxvt console, Chroot means "Change root directory". Any application you execute inside that chrooted session will reference the directory structure under that new root. Everything else outside that console is still Puppy, you never exit Puppy.

Nice, eh?

[ricstef]

Rarsa,
Thanks for your explanation; that is soooo cool !

Richard.

[ricstef]

Rarsa,
I had to try it. One system has Puppy-2.12 on /hda2 and Fedora-Core5 with gnucash on /hda8.
So, I boot Puppy (/hda2),
I mount /hda8 using Mut,
I start rxvt, and enter: # chroot /mnt/hda8 gnucash

a message comes back:
Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display :0.0

What did I miss ?

Thanks again,
Richard.

[GeoffS]

Richard
I had the same result with chroot and GNUcash.
However - 'underdog' appears to work. I have not really tested it as yet but GNUcash did start and did import a QIF file and did appear to do the correct things with it.

In case you are not sure about 'underdog'.
Create a file called 'underdog.lnx' with a single line of text 'hda8' (without the quotes and I'm assuming you want to use the partition you refered to previously)
Place this file in the same partition as your 'save' file so that puppy will find it when booting.
Typing 'gnucash' in a console should start it.
That's it, however there appears to be a few caveats I've had a couple of problems with programs that exist in both systems - puppy appears to get confused
I'm certainly going to give it more testing, it appears it may be a lazy workaround

My GNUcash is in PCLinuxOS.

You have probably seen the thread from craftybytes who has created an sfs file of GNUcash. http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=17278 That would be another way to go however it will only work for the one version of puppy (2.14 I believe). If you have the disk space for another linux distro then underdog seems a better approach.

Let me know how you get on
Geoff
Puppy 2.13

[tronkel]

Hopefully craftybytes' sfs file might work on other versions of Puppy by simply renaming the GNUcash_xxx.sfs to whatever. sfs file is. A very good way of achieving the goal of running GUcash but, this assumes that everything is OK with unionfs, which unfortunately is not the case at the moment. aufs may change all that very soon though. In the meantime it's better than nothing.

If someone could get a compile of GNUcash going, it ought to be a piece of cake to convert it to a dotPET (which is the preferred Puppy package type). That would be an ideal solution in the case of GNUcash, a package that is often sought after.

Seems a bit of a pain to have to install another Linux underneath Puppy (i.e. running via underdog) simply in order to get access to a required binary package. Like a lot of users in the forum, I prefer Puppy to all other Linuces and would rather rely exclusively on Puppy if at all possible. I wouldn't use the unerneath system for any other purpose other than to install difficult packages. Seems like a waste of HD space then, to have to install a bigger distro underneath Puppy. As previously mentioned, if Puppy was made capable of connecting to the soon-to-arrive Linspire CRN repository, this sort of problem with packages would be a thing of the past. The CRN system could be used to no-fail install a binary package in the case where compilation of a package from source was proving difficult or time-consuming. The excellent petGet system currently used in Puppy would take care of the rest.

[craftybytes]

tronkel,

For further info - see my post in this thread :-

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=17278

Just a note - have yet to do the upload of this '.sfs' file - hopefully tomorrow Monday 16th, April - via broadband if I can get on..!!


HTH..

[craftybytes]

For those waiting for the Gnucash '.sfs' file :-

My apologies - but had a major hard disk crash last Tuesday - lost most of what I had on my Puppy partition (along with my MEPIS partition) - so no go for the Gnucash.sfs file upload..

However have now restored most of what I lost (I do do backups - I do.. )
so am in the process of trying to rebuild the Gnucash '.sfs' file again ..

Please be patient and I will get it sorted out as soon as I can ..

Will keep you informed as to progress..

HTH

[WhoDo]

For those waiting for the Gnucash '.sfs' file :-...[snip]...
Please be patient and I will get it sorted out as soon as I can ..

Will keep you informed as to progress..

Hi crafty,

Sorry you had a problem, but very glad you have backups.

Looking forward to seeing how you go with Gnucash. I tried quite some time ago, but couldn't get past the multiple dependency compiles required in different environments. If you succeed ... no WHEN you succeed ... it will be a major contribution to the functionality of Puppy. Keep it going, mate.

Cheers

[toomuchcomputertime]

I am trying to compile Gnucash for Puppy, but am quite new to compiling. Could anyone give me some tips?

There seem to be 2 libraries to compile first, and I would like to make dot pets of them before installing, but make install just installs them, and I can't move things around like when I usually make a pet package.

How do I make a pet package of programs I am compiling, and any specific tips on Gnucash, or is there already a recent pet or sfs of Gnucash somewhere else?

Thanks.

[toowoombalinux]

G'day,
I compiled Gnucash 2.22 a while back - this is the version I use and seems to work ok. But as I haven't had to reinstall the System for ages I can't remember if I had to tweek the system.

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 64&t=42936

This isn't quite the latest and greatest but I find its stable and works.

Hope this helps toomuchcomputertime.

Cheers
Martin

[toomuchcomputertime]

Thanks, I will take a look, also I am comparing gnucash with jGnash, I have been using Gnucash though.

Thanks.

[toomuchcomputertime]

Thanks, but it messed up libraries, and would not boot. I removed the duplicate libraries, but Gnucash would not start. I can't even get the windows version to work through wine.

Thanks.

[toowoombalinux]

G'day,
Gnucash works in Puppy 3.01 - but it's a very tedious process to ensure the dependencies are satisfied - I have included it in my Puppy Ultimate Edition to show that it is possible.

What you need to install is gnome-2.20 from here ..

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 52&t=27864

as well as the other dependencies; and it worked for me. Also, the new catalog entry in guile terminal is very important as without this it constantly fails.

Cheers
Martin
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[Pelo]

Lucid PPM has Gnucash available. Runs OK.