gnucash/kmymoney

[Craig White]

On Fri, 2007-03-02 at 20:41 -0700, Joseph Sinclair wrote:
> Mike,
>   From the apt-get output you posted, it's pretty clear your repositories are for a different version of the system than you're running (hence the 780 packages not upgraded).
> The best solution from here is to simply re-install with the version you want to be running and DON'T change the repositories after that.
> Apt-get does a GREAT job of keeping your system in sync with a single version.  On many distro's, however, it won't do the upgrade properly (Ubuntu's latest update is infamous in this regard, and Feisty is likely to be just as bad; don't upgrade Ubuntu for new versions, except LTS->LTS, reinstall instead).
> For your stable system, you need to choose the long-term-support version for whatever distro you're running (look for a 3-5 year support commitment, examples include Ubuntu LTS, RHEL, etc...) and STICK TO IT.  Don't mess around with a stable system any more than you have to, and don't upgrade to a new release without testing it elsewhere first.  I've taken to doing upgrades on my stable system ONLY after I've tested the upgrade on another machine (which is why I didn't do the Edgy update on all my Ubuntu machines, it broke the test system badly enough to require a re-install so my Edgy machines are all fresh installs) and determined it's both safe to upgrade and enhances system stability or adds critical features.
> I have multiple Linux systems, one that runs a LTS version of Linux that I leave alone except for critical updates; it's stable and I use it for day-to-day tasks.  The other systems are available for experimentation because I DON'T EVER keep important data on them, and if they're down for a few weeks it doesn't hurt me.  One of the "testing" machines is usually the guinea pig for any changes to the stable machine.  I install the test machine to match stable, then I do to the test what I want to do on stable, and I only repeat the change on stable if test works fine for several days after the change (if I need something NOW I do have a semi-stable system, but that gets into some of the second-order complexities of my home net and is beyond the scope of this discussion).
> 
> <Rant disclaimer="The following is a generalization, and is NOT related to any particular person">
> One of the biggest mistakes I see people make, IMNSHO, with Linux is experimenting/exploring with their day-to-day critical system that has their important data and applications (I even did this when I first started using Linux).  When they're playing around makes the system unstable, they complain about Linux.  The thing is that Linux isn't at fault, it allows you to do weird stuff because sometimes you might want to, but you're expected to either know what you're doing before you start, or do your learning on a spare machine you can afford to rebuild from scratch every now and then without getting upset.
> Some people think Windows is better for less-technical users because you don't have to constantly "tweak it" to keep it up and running.  This is complete bunk.  Windows needs far more support to keep running properly than Linux ever has, the difference is that Linux *allows* you to tweak it constantly, so a lot of people who should just leave it alone try to make a perfectly functional system run "better" and end up breaking it.  There's nothing wrong with trying things to make a system better, just don't do it with your critical day-to-day machine.
> Again, set up one machine that's for real work, and LEAVE IT ALONE except for critical updates (hopefully applied by the distribution's auto-update mechanism in the background every week or so).  Do your tweaking and learning on a separate "learning" system (this can be in a Virtual Machine if your main system is fairly powerful) and expect to rebuild it from scratch every few weeks when you break stuff.
> </Rant>
> 
> Michael Havens wrote:
> > This gets me to thinking: perhaps i could apt-get the stable version. THAT 
> > MIght work. To be completely honest with you I tried it already and it 
> > responded:
> > 	
> > bmike1 at 1[~]$ sudo apt-get install gnucash=1.8.10-12
> > Reading package lists... Done
> > Building dependency tree... Done
> > E: Version '1.8.10-12' for 'gnucash' was not found
> > bmike1 at 1[~]$ sudo apt-get install gnucash=stable
> > Reading package lists... Done
> > Building dependency tree... Done
> > E: Version 'stable' for 'gnucash' was not found
> > bmike1 at 1[~]$ sudo apt-get install gnucash=testing
> > Reading package lists... Done
> > Building dependency tree... Done
> > E: Version 'testing' for 'gnucash' was not found
> > bmike1 at 1[~]$                           
> > 
> > What did I do wrong? Am I supposed to set something to stable? What?
> >                                                     
> > On Friday 02 March 2007 6:53 pm, Michael Havens wrote:
> >> That is what caused this whole problem. I upgraded my ssystem and broke
> >> EVERYthing.
> >>
> >> On Friday 02 March 2007 6:48 pm, Jeremy C. Reed wrote:
> >>> That's part (or most) of your problem. You should do the updates. The
> >>> farther you get behind, the harder is will be for you to update your
> >>> system. If you do updates frequently (like every week or at least every
> >>> month), it will make it easier for you to keep up.
> >>>
> >>>> 77 upgraded, 48 newly installed, 18 to remove and 780 not upgraded.
> >>>> Need to get 170MB of archives.
> >>>> After unpacking 41.7MB of additional disk space will be used.
> >>>> Do you want to continue [Y/n]? n
----
I am not familiar enough with Ubuntu and totally unfamiliar with
Mepis...I am familiar with Fedora/Red Hat/CentOS packaging.

On a Fedora system, a 'yum update' command would very likely upgrade 77
packages if it had been more than 3 weeks since the last 'yum update'. I
know that gnucash has a lot of dependent packages and at first glance it
would seem that 48 newly installed packages to satisfy the installation
of gnucash seems to be a bit excessive.

Anyway, regarding your rant Joseph...I have a different way of doing
much the same thing and that is to store my documents, my e-mail, etc.
on a 'stable' Linux based server which frees me to wreck my desktop
system if I choose. I can do a clean install of a new version of Fedora
without much effort or worry about losing files. NFS and IMAP server are
wonderful things to have at home.

Craig