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git-svn-id: svn+ssh://svn.gnucash.org/repo/gnucash/trunk@20505 57a11ea4-9604-0410-9ed3-97b8803252fd
424 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
424 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
############################################################
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GnuCash 2.4.x README file.
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The last known stable series is the 2.4.0 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
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register in the back of your checkbook, you
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can use GnuCash. Type directly into the register,
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tab between fields, and use quick-fill to
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automatically complete the transaction.
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The interface is customizable from within the
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application itself (no editing config files :) )
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- Scheduled Transactions: GnuCash now has the ability to
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automatically create and enter transactions, remind when
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a transaction is due, give a choice of entering a transaction
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or postponing it and remove an automated transaction after a
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certain period.
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- Mortgage & Loan Repayment Druid: Used to setup a variable
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payment loan scheduled transaction.
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- Small Business Accounting Features: GnuCash now 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 is the first free software application
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to support the Open Financial Exchange protocol that many
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banks and financial services are moving to use. The
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development of OFX and HBCI support has also resulted in
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an improved transaction matching system that more accurately
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picks duplicate transactions.
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- HBCI Support: GnuCash is the first free software application
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to support the German Home Banking Computer Interface protocol
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which includes statement download, initiate bank transfers
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and direct debits.
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- Quicken File Import: Import Quicken QIF style files.
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QIF files are automatically merged to eliminate
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duplicate transactions.
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- Reconcile window with running reconciled
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and cleared balances makes reconciliation easy.
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- Stock/Mutual Fund Portfolios: Track stocks
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individually (one per account) or in portfolio
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of accounts (a group of accounts that can be
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displayed together).
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- Get Stock & Mutual Fund quotes from various web sites,
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update portfolio automatically (more funds being added
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regularly).
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- Reports: Display Balance Sheet, Profit&Loss, Portfolio
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Valuation, Transaction Reports, or account balance tracking,
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or export them as HTML. You can write your own custom
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report if you know a little Scheme. Reports can now be performed
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over an accounting period!
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- Multiple Currencies & Currency Trading: Multiple
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currencies are supported and can be bought and
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sold (traded). Currency movements between accounts
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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
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multiple currency transfers.
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- Chart of Accounts: A master account can have a hierarchy
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of detail accounts underneath it. This allows similar
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account types (e.g. Cash, Bank, Stock) to be grouped
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into one master account (e.g. Assets).
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- Split Transactions: A single transaction can be split
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into several pieces to record taxes, fees, and
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other compound entries.
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- Double Entry: When enabled, every transaction must
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debit one account and credit another by an equal amount.
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This ensures that the "books balance": that the
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difference between income and outflow exactly equals
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the sum of all assets, be they bank, cash, stock or other.
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- Income/Expense Account Types (Categories):
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These serve not only to categorize your cash flow,
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but when used properly with the double-entry feature,
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these can provide an accurate Profit&Loss statement.
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- General Ledger: Multiple accounts can be displayed
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in one register window at the same time. This can
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ease the trouble of tracking down typing/entry errors.
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It also provides a convenient way of viewing a
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portfolio of many stocks, by showing all transactions
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in 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
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same file, even if the file is NFS-mounted.
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- Provides a byte-stream format, which allows accounts and
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account groups to be transmitted to other processes
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via pipes or sockets.
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- International date handling, many different translations.
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- New User Manual and Help: A brand new user help has been
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written which focuses on how to do tasks in conjunction
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with a Tutorial and Concepts guide that gives the user
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background information on using GnuCash.
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- Redesigned Menu's: The GnuCash menu's have been redesigned
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to conform more with the new GNOME Human Interface Guidelines.
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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/pub/gnucash/
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Development versions:
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http://www.gnucash.org/en/hacking.phtml
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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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To be able to use certain features of GnuCash, such as reports and
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network stock price downloads, you must have the following packages
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below installed (in addition to those listed above).
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perl: Almost any version of perl5 should work. I run perl-5.004
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In addition, some perl modules need to be installed. You can run
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the script 'update-finance-quote' as root to obtain the latest
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versions of required packages.
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To use the new import features (OFX and HBCI) 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 online actions.
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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 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. These are
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enabled with environment variables. For example,
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Francais, in bash:
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export LANG=fr_FR
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Francais, in tcsh:
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setenv LANG fr_FR
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German version:
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export LANG=de_DE
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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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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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libxml: available from ftp.gnome.org
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SWIG: 1.3.28 or later is needed. See http://www.swig.org or
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http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=1645
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(Note: g-wrap has been dropped completely in gnucash 2.2.0 and
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is no longer needed.)
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texinfo: If you are building from SVN, you need the GNU texinfo
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package, version 4.0 or later.
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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 2.0.x is known to work with the following operating systems:
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GNU/Linux -- x86, Sparc, PPC
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Solaris -- Sparc
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FreeBSD -- x86
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OpenBSD -- x86
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MacOS X -- PPC
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Previous versions have been known to work on the following platforms, but
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their current status is unknown:
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SGI IRIX -- MIPS
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IBM AIX 4.1.5 -- RS/6000 http://www-frec.bull.com/
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Unixware 7 -- Intel
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SCO OpenServer 5.0.4 -- Intel
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See http://www.gnucash.org/pub/gnucash (high-bandwidth)
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or http://linas.org/linux/gnucash (slow-www )
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for precompiled (but *very old*) binaries for these platforms
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GnuCash can probably be made to work with most POSIX-ish platforms,
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provided the libraries and toolchain are available.
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#########################
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Additional Download Sites
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-------------------------
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You can also download GnuCash from:
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- http://download.sourceforge.net/gnucash
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You can download GnuCash Solaris packages from:
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- http://www.unixrealm.com/downloads/
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You can get GnuCash Mandrake packages on Mandriva Cooker sites.
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Precompiled binaries & pre-requisite packages can be found at the
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following sites. The GnuCash versions here are all *extremely*
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old, and were indeed from GnuCash's ancestor "x-accountant".
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IBM AIX 4.1.5
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-- SMIT-installable images
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-- warning, this is from the 1.0 series of xacc
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http://www.bull.de/pub/
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see also http://www-frec.bull.com/
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SCO OpenServer 5.0.4
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http://www.sco.com/skunkware/osr5/x11/apps/xacc/VOLS.tar
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-- this is from the 1.0 series of xacc
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Unixware 7
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-- use pkgadd to install
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http://www.sco.com/skunkware/uw7/x11/apps/xacc/xacc.pkg.gz
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SGI Irix
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-- in SGI install format
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-- warning, this is a very down-level version
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http://linas.org/linux/xacc/xacc-1.0b7-sgi-irix.inst.tar
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##############################
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Getting Source with Subversion
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------------------------------
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A read-only version of the svn tree is available on the net at:
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http://svn.gnucash.org/repo/gnucash/
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To get what used to be CVS HEAD (and now includes what used to be
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gnucash-gnome2-dev), you will need to get the svn TRUNK:
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svn checkout http://svn.gnucash.org/repo/gnucash/trunk gnucash
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The argument "gnucash" above can be whatever you want your local
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directory to be called, and is optional. If you leave it out,
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you'll have a directory called "trunk" created containing all the
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source code.
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If you want the latest 2.0.x code, you'd need to pull from the
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2.0 branch, as follows:
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svn checkout http://svn.gnucash.org/repo/gnucash/branches/2.0 gnucash-2.0
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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. Several of the directories under src contain files called design.txt
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which explain many aspects of GnuCash's design. Read those.
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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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Once you have done some work that you would like to submit, you need
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to send a patch. There are two ways to submit a patch. First, if
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you're using SVN and only made changes to existing SVN files you
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can generate the patch using:
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svn diff > /tmp/mypatch
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and attach it to the appropriate bug or enhancement request in
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Bugzilla (https://bugzilla.gnome.org). Create a new bug if you don't
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find one that's applicable. Please don't submit patches to either of
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the mailing lists, as they tend to be forgotten.
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If your patch adds new files, use the `-N' flag to diff between a
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clean directory and your development directory. E.g.
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$ diff -urN {gnucash-pristine} {gnucash-mydevel} > /tmp/mypatch
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Thank you.
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