Installing Gnucash 1.8 on Slackware 10.1

(For Gnucash 2.0 and/or Slack 11, look here)

Last updated 25 Feb 2007

Judah Milgram
(email-address (my-last-name) (dot-com-domain "cgpp"))

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Background

Gnucash 1.8 is still a Gnome 1.4 app. Slackware dropped support for Gnome 1.4 in version 9.0. It would be nice if Slackware reintroduced support for Gnome 1.4, and/or Gnucash were ported to Gnome 2, but neither seems likely to happen anytime soon. Who can wait? We have accounts to reconcile! And we don't want to switch to RedHat :)

The good news is, it's not too hard to get Gnucash on your Slackware system.

• For Slack 9, see R.J. Marquette's Gnucash on Slackware page. This actually is good reading before installing on Slack 10 too, and most of what follows was taken from that page. Thanks R.J.!
• For Slack 10.1 (an perhaps 10.x in general), read on.

WARNING! This might not work! The instructions are based on the very sketchy notes I made after I finally got it to work. I might have failed to note a step, taken unnecessary steps, remembered something wrong, etc. etc. If something breaks, you're SOL, but do let me know about it.

Acknowledgement: This is basically just the procedure detailed by R.J. Marquette on his Gnucash on Slackware page, tweaked for Slack 10.1.

Step by Step Instructions

1. Give up all hope of compiling the required Gnome 1.4 libraries from source. Don't even start. Just forget it.

2. peruse and bookmark R.J.'s Gnucash on Slackware page.

3. You might also consider simply grabbing the Gnucash package from this collection of Slackware packages. I have no experience to offer on this point.

4. get the following Slackware 8.1 packages from your favorite mirror:

   bonobo-1.0.20-i386-1.tgz
   gal-0.19.2-i386-1.tgz
   gnome-libs-1.4.1.7-i386-1.tgz
   gtkhtml-1.0.2-i386-1.tgz
   guppi-0.40.3-i386-1.tgz
   libghttp-1.0.9-i386-1.tgz
   libglade-0.17-i386-1.tgz
   libxml-1.8.17-i386-1.tgz
   oaf-0.6.10-i386-1.tgz
   

   Install them all with installpkg. Note:
   • I don't think the order matters.
   • you'll build gnome-print from source. This fixed certain font problems I experienced with the Slack 8.1 gnome-print package, even after gnucash compiled.
   • I didn't notice any clashes with the 10.1 packages, except for a few png files that diff'ed the same.
   • you don't need to install imlib like you did with Slack 9.

5. get these source tarballs:

   g-wrap-1.3.4.tar.gz
   gdk-pixbuf-0.22.0.tar.bz2
   gnome-print-0.37.tar.bz2
   gnucash-1.8.11.tar.gz
   slib2d6.tar.gz
   

   Notes:
   • Sorry I don't have URL's for these, but they should be generally easy to find. Check the Gnucash software dependency page.
   • slib3a1 is said not to work.
   • you'll reinstall gdk-pixbuf because the Slack 10.1 package is missing a library or two and this will make the gal test fail when you configure gnucash.

6. Berkeley DB1. I read somewhere that in theory Gnucash should be able to find and compile against the later Berkeley DB versions that come with Slackware 10.1. But that didn't work, and this did, and I didn't feel like researching it any further. If you're interested in perfect and complete knowledge, go read Faust.

   There are two options here.

   • First, Mark Johnson points out that the db1 package is still included with Slack 10 and 10.1, they're in the pasture/ directory, look for db1-1.85.... Simply installing that should work. Ladi Fatola reports that db1-1.85-i386-1.tgz from the Slackware 9.0 "l" series worked. If you have a Slackware package like this, just run installpkg.

   • Or, if you prefer to compile db1-1.85 from source, here's what I did. Get, from www.sleepycat.com

     db.1.85.tar.gz
     patch.1.85.2	
     patch.1.85.3
     patch.1.85.4
     patch.1.85.5
     

     No, you don't need patch.1.85.1. Get this patch as well: patch.1.85.jm1. Then, starting from the directory where you have db.1.85.tar.gz and all the patches:

     tar xfvz db.1.85.tar.gz
     patch -p0 < patch.1.85.jm1
     cd db.1.85
     patch -p0 < ../patch.1.85.2
     patch -p0 < ../patch.1.85.4
     patch -p0 < ../patch.1.85.5
     cd PORT/linux
     patch < ../../../patch.1.85.3
     make
     cp libdb.a /usr/lib/libdb1.a
     mkdir /usr/include/db1
     cp include/db.h /usr/include/db1	
     

     But like I say, the easy way is probably just to get the Slackware db-1.85 package from the pasture/ subdirectory.

7. Replace the gdk-pixbuf installation:

        removepkg gdk-pixbuf-0.22.0-i486-1
        tar xfvj gdk-pixbuf-0.22.0.tar.bz2
        cd gdk-pixbuf-0.22.0 && ./configure --prefix=/usr && make install
        

   I can't remember for sure whether I really used --prefix=/usr, or whether it's necessary. R.J.'s page says to use it or else the gnucash configure script won't find the libraries. Don't know if this still applies.

8. Install g-wrap-1.3.4. Can't remember exactly ... it's probably just a compile/make/make install.
9. Install gnome-print

        tar xfvj gnome-print-0.37.tar.bz2
        cd gnome-print-0.37
        ./configure --prefix=/usr && make install
        

   Again, not sure whether I really used --prefix=/usr, or whether it's necessary.

10. Install slib. I am again indebted to R.J. Marquette for these instructions, which indeed are ripped off verbatim from his Gnucash on Slackware page.

    1. Get version 2d6; 3a1 is missing a file that gnucash requires.
    2. Unpack slib2d6.tar.gz into /usr/share/guile/1.6/ (creates slib dir)
    3. Just to be on the safe side, chown -R root:root slib
    4. As root, enter the command: guile -l /usr/share/guile/1.6/slib/guile.init
    5. At the guile prompt, type: (require 'new-catalog).
    6. Then, exit guile by typing: (exit).

11. Again, from R.J.'s Gnucash on Slackware page:

    Edit the files /usr/lib/libgnomeprint.la and /usr/lib/libgtkhtml.la. In the "dependency_libs" field in both files, you'll see "/usr/X11R6/lib/libfreetype.la". Change it to "/usr/lib/libfreetype.la" in both files... (Thanks to Jason Childs for finding and submitting the solution to this problem!)

    I did this. Might have been better to fix this with a soft link or two, but who knows.

12. Now you should be able to compile gnucash. It's a straight ./configure && make && make install.

13. Start up gnucash once as root. Just start it up and exit.

14. See R.J.'s instructions for installing the help files. They're written for Slack 9; I haven't attempted any of this yet for Slack 10. When I do I'll update this page.

If you run into trouble or have any corrections, by all means let me know. I recommend first checking out R.J.'s Gnucash on Slackware page for more information and advice.

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