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dates from 2.0.x Reviewed and updated to reflect current status. git-svn-id: svn+ssh://svn.gnucash.org/repo/gnucash/trunk@23675 57a11ea4-9604-0410-9ed3-97b8803252fd
360 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
360 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
############################################################
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GnuCash 2.6.x README file.
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The last known stable series is the 2.6.0 series.
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------------------------------------------------------------
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##################
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Table of Contents:
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------------------
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- Overview
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- Dependencies
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- Invocation/running
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- Internationalization
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- Building & Installing
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- Supported Platforms
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- Additional Download Sites
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- Getting the Source via SVN
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- Developing GnuCash
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########
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Overview
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--------
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GnuCash is a personal finance manager. A check-book like register GUI
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allows you to enter and track bank accounts, stocks, income and even
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currency trades. A full set of reports allow you to see the state of
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your finances. The interface is designed to be simple and easy to use,
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but is backed with double-entry accounting principles to ensure
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balanced books.
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Features include:
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- An easy-to-use interface. If you can use the register in the back
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of your checkbook, you can use GnuCash. Type directly into the
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register, tab between fields, and use quick-fill to automatically
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complete the transaction.
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- Scheduled Transactions: GnuCash has the ability to automatically
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create and enter transactions, remind when a transaction is due,
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give a choice of entering a transaction or postponing it and
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remove an automated transaction after a certain period.
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- Mortgage & Loan Repayment Assistant: Used to setup a variable
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payment loan scheduled transaction.
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- Small Business Accounting Features: GnuCash can be used
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for Customer and Vendor tracking, Invoicing and Bill Payment,
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and using different Tax and Billing Terms in a small business.
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- OFX Import: GnuCash can import downloaded OFX/QFX files and
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retrieve account info and transactions via OFXDirect. The results
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are passed through a transaction matching system that accurately
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picks duplicate transactions and assigns contra accounts based on
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similar previously-imported transactions.
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- HBCI Support: GnuCash also supports the German Home Banking
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Computer Interface protocol which includes statement download,
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initiate bank transfers and direct debits.
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- Quicken File Import: Import Quicken QIF style files. QIF files
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are automatically merged to eliminate duplicate transactions.
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- Reconcile window with running reconciled and cleared balances
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makes reconciliation easy.
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- Stock/Mutual Fund Portfolios: Track stocks individually (one per
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account) or in portfolio of accounts (a group of accounts that can
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be displayed together).
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- Get Stock & Mutual Fund quotes from various web sites, update
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portfolio automatically (more funds being added regularly).
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- Reports: Display Balance Sheet, Profit&Loss, Portfolio Valuation,
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Transaction Reports, or account balance tracking, or export them
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as HTML. You can write your own custom report if you know a
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little Scheme. Reports can be run over any arbitrary period.
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- Multiple Currencies & Currency Trading: Multiple currencies are
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supported and can be bought and sold (traded). Currency movements
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between accounts are fully balanced when double-entry is enabled.
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- New Multi-Currency Transaction Handling: GnuCash no longer
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requires separate currency exchange accounts to handle multiple
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currency transfers.
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- Chart of Accounts: A master account can have a hierarchy of detail
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accounts underneath it. This allows similar account types
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(e.g. Cash, Bank, Stock) to be grouped into one master account
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(e.g. Assets).
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- Split Transactions: A single transaction can be split into several
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pieces to record taxes, fees, and other compound entries.
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- Double Entry: Every transaction must debit one account and credit
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another by an equal amount. This ensures that the "books
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balance": that the difference between income and outflow exactly
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equals the sum of all assets, be they bank, cash, stock or other.
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- Income/Expense Account Types (Categories): These serve not only to
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categorize your cash flow, but when used properly with the
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double-entry feature, these can provide an accurate Profit&Loss
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statement.
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- General Ledger: Multiple accounts can be displayed in one register
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window at the same time. This can ease the trouble of tracking
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down typing/entry errors. It also provides a convenient way of
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viewing a portfolio of many stocks, by showing all transactions in
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that portfolio.
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- Written in C with embedded scheme support via Guile.
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- File access is locked in a network-safe fashion, preventing
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accidental damage if several users attempt to access the same
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file, even if the file is NFS-mounted.
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- SQL storage is supported using MySQL, Postgresql, and
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SQLite3. Note that this does not support multiple concurrent
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access.
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Home Page:
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http://www.gnucash.org/
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Precompiled binaries:
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http://www.gnucash.org/download
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############
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Dependencies
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------------
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The following packages are required to be installed to run GnuCash:
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[see README.dependencies]
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The optional online stock and currency price retrieval feature requires Perl. This is generally already installed on Gnu/Linux and *BSD, and MacOSX.
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In addition, some perl modules need to be installed. You can run the
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script 'update-finance-quote' as root to obtain the latest versions of
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required packages. This program requires an C compiler, which is
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generally already installed in Gnu/Linux and *BSD, but must be
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installed separately on MacOSX; on versions 10.6 and earlier, install
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Xcode from the distribution DVD or by downloading from
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http://developer.apple.com (you'll need to log in with your Apple ID);
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for 10.7 and 10.8, you can get Xcode for free from the App store. 10.9
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has a cool feature that detects an attempt to compile and offers to
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install the command-line build tools for you.
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Microsoft Windows users can use the "Install Online Quotes" program in the Start menu's Gnucash group.
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To use the OFX and HBCI import features you need to obtain
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the following;
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libofx: This library provide support for OFX file imports.
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GnuCash-2.0.0 and newer needs at least the version libofx-0.7.0
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or newer. Sources can be found at
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http://sourceforge.net/projects/libofx/
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aqbanking: This library provide support for HBCI and openOFX online actions.
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Three libraries, Ktoblzcheck, Gwenhywfar, and AQBanking, are required.
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All may be obtained from
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http://www2.aquamaniac.de/sites/download/packages.php
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#######
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Running
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-------
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For GnuCash invocation details, see the manpage in doc/gnucash.1.
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You can also run gnucash --help for the command line options.
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You can start GnuCash at the command-line, with "gnucash" or "gnucash
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<filename>", where <filename> is a GnuCash account file. Sample
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accounts can be found in the "doc/examples" subdirectory. *.gnucash
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files are GnuCash accounts that can be opened with the "Open File" menu entry.
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*.qif files are Quicken Import Format files that can be opened with the
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"Import QIF" menu entry.
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GnuCash responds to the following environment variables:
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GNC_BOOTSTRAP_SCM - the location of the initial bootstrapping scheme code.
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GUILE_LOAD_PATH - an override for the GnuCash load path, used when
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loading scheme files. It should be a string in the same form as the
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PATH or LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable.
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GNC_MODULE_PATH - an override for the GnuCash load path, used when
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loading gnucash modules. It should be a string representing a
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proper scheme list. It should be a string in the same form as the
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PATH or LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable.
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GNC_DEBUG - enable debugging output. This allows you to turn on
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debugging earlier in the startup process than you can with --debug.
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####################
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Internationalization
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--------------------
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Message catalogs exist for many different languages. In general
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GnuCash will use the locale configured in the desktop environment if
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we have a translation for it, but this may be overridden if one
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likes. Instructions for overriding the locale settings may be found at
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http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Locale_Settings
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#####################
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Building & Installing
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---------------------
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(For additional build system details, see doc/README.build-system.)
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GnuCash uses GNU Automake to handle the build process, so for most of
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the details, see the generic instructions in INSTALL. (If you are
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building directory from SVN, read the README.svn for more instructions.)
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Below we detail the GnuCash specific bits.
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Prior to building GnuCash, you will have to obtain and install the
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following packages:
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autoconf, automake, and libtool: Available at ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu.
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RPM's and debs are widely available with most distributions.
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gnome development system: headers, libraries, etc.
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libxml2: available from ftp.gnome.org
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SWIG: 2.0.10 or later is needed. See http://www.swig.org or
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http://sourceforge.net/projects/swig/
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What you'll need to get and install in order to make sure you have all
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of these pieces properly installed for your particular operating
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system flavor will vary, but here's at least a partial list of what
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you'll need for the systems we know about:
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Debian/GNU/Linux: see README.dependencies and
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current:
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libgnome-dev
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libwebkit-dev
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guile1.8
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libguile9-dev
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libguile9-slib
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SuSE:
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see README.dependencies
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GnuCash understands a few non-standard ./configure options. You
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should run ./configure --help for the most up to date summary of the
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supported options.
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If you only want a particular language installed, you can set the
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LINGUAS environment variable before you run configure. For example,
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to only install the French translations, run
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$ export LINGUAS=fr
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$ ./configure
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If you want to make sure that all languages get installed, run
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$ unset LINGUAS
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$ ./configure
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Note that while you need the Gnome libraries installed, you don't
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need to have a Gnome desktop.
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Runtime and install destinations are separate. The --prefix you
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specify to configure determines where the resulting binary will look
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for things at runtime. Normally this determines where a "make
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install" will put all the files. However, automake also supports the
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variable. DESTDIR is used during the `make install' step to relocate
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install objects into a staging area. Each object and path is prefixed
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with the value of `DESTDIR' before being copied into the install area.
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Here is an example of typical DESTDIR usage:
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make DESTDIR=/tmp/staging install
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This places install objects in a directory tree built under
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`/tmp/staging'. If `/gnu/bin/foo' and `/gnu/share/aclocal/foo.m4' are
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to be installed, the above command would install
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`/tmp/staging/gnu/bin/foo' and `/tmp/staging/gnu/share/aclocal/foo.m4'.
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DESTDIR can be helpful when trying to build install images and
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packages.
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NOTE: If you have installed different parts of Gnome in different
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places (for instance, if you've installed webkit in /usr/local) you
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will need to set the environment variables GNOME_PATH and
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GNOME_LIBCONFIG_PATH. See the manpage for gnome-config for more
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details.
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###################
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Supported Platforms
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-------------------
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GnuCash 2.x is known to work with the following operating systems:
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GNU/Linux -- x86, Sparc, PPC
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FreeBSD -- x86
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OpenBSD -- x86
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MacOS X -- PPC and Intel, Versions 10.5 and later
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GnuCash can probably be made to work on any platform for which Gtk+ can,
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given sufficient effort. If you try and encounter difficulty, please join
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the developer's mailing list, gnucash-devel@gnucash.org.
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#########################
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Downloads
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-------------------------
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GnuCash sources and Mac and Windows binaries are hosted at
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SourceForge. Links for the current version are provided at
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http://www.gnucash.org. We depend upon distribution packagers for
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GNU/Linux and *BSD binaries, so if you want a more recent version than
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your distribution provides you'll have to build from source.
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##############################
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Getting Source with Git
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------------------------------
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We maintain a mirror of our master repository on Github. You can
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browse the code at https://github.com/Gnucash/gnucash. Clone URIs are
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on that page, or if you have a Github account you can fork it
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there. Note, however, that we do *not* accept Github pull requests:
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All patches should be submitted via Bugzilla, see below.
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##################
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Developing GnuCash
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------------------
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Before you start developing GnuCash, you should do the following:
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1. Read http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Development
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2. Look over the doxygen-generated documentation at
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http://code.gnucash.org/docs/HEAD/
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3. Go to the GnuCash website and skim the archives of the GnuCash
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development mailing list.
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4. Join the GnuCash development mailing list. See the GnuCash website
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for details on how to do this.
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Submitting a Patch:
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Patches should be created from a git clone using the appropriate
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branch HEAD. For those unfamiliar with git, instructions on making a
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patch may be found at http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Git#Patches
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Please attach patches to the appropriate bug or enhancement request
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in Bugzilla (https://bugzilla.gnome.org, Project GnuCash). Create a
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new bug if you don't find one that's applicable. Please don't submit
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patches to either of the mailing lists, as they tend to be
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forgotten.
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Thank you.
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