Re: where to start -- what Linux distro? (fwd)

["D. Hugh Redelmeier" <..hidden..>]

For some reason, Gerd cannot post to the list.

Could a list admin look into this for him?  Thanks.

He replied to me but has given permission for me to forward this to the 
list.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 23 May 2008 13:14:40 +0000
From: Gerd Nennemann <..hidden..>
To: D. Hugh Redelmeier <..hidden..>
Subject: Re: [Ledger-smb-devel] where to start -- what Linux distro?

Hello,

here´s a quick report from a LedgerSMB newbie. I hope this will help and
I hope you can help me as well - see last section, please.

On Fri, 2008-05-23 at 01:59 -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
> I would like to try LedgerSMB for, well, a small business.

Great ! I use it for my small business. My bookkeeper can remotely
control my activities by just starting his webbrowser and logging in at
my own LedgerSMB server. He doesn´t need to know anything about Linux,
LaTeX, PostgreSQL, Apache and the languages Perl, HTML, CSS, and SQL.

But as the administrator, you REALLY have to know all these things. I
suppose, you are going to install and maintain the system by yourself.
Definitely, this won´t be the way of least resistance ! I can´t tell if
there is an easier way, because I always opt for the most
complicated :-)
I really appreciate the open source model and the fact, that it was
written in Perl. This way I can handle some things by myself in contrast
being at the mercy of a commercial software manufacturer. But please
keep in mind that even small problems can be much more time consuming.
Time, you´d rather spend on earning money instead of playing around with
the bookkeeping software ! Be warned !

> [...]
> I'm a little disapointed if LSMB drives my distro decision, but I
> understand how that can happen.

I don´t see any dependency on a particular LINUX distribution. If you
only depend on what´s already prepared as a rpm package on the
distribution CD-ROM, you might be on the wrong way. It seems to be
easier to just click on a checkbox and let the distribution´s installer
do all the work, but sooner or later you will have to learn how to
manually install or update various things. 

As far as I can see, LedgerSMB contains only Perl code and therefore it
should be platform independent. At first I installed LedgerSMB on
OpenSUSE Linux. I tested Fedora and Ubuntu Linux distributions and
finally I came to the conclusion, that I don´t like LINUX at all. I went
back to where I came from: BSD UNIX. Now I installed LedgerSMB on
FreeBSD 7.0   - it wasn´t a big deal. Unpack the freshly downloaded
sources with tar -xvzf <soucres.tgz> and follow the instructions given
in the README and INSTALL files. 

The same technique applies to installing PERL modules, which you can
search and download from http://www.cpan.org .
Unpack it,
cd into the directory,
make  or  gmake,
make test,
make install,
That´s all. I have to admit, that most of the times I simpy try without
having read the README file and it works fine.
But if you encounter some error messages during the test, take a closer
look. Mostly they indicate, which other Perl modules are missing. Make a
list on a sheet of paper, then fetch and install all dependencies and
finally return make the test again.

I think, the PostgreSQL database is most difficult job. I´d prefer a
precompiled package since I compiled PostgreSQL on time by myself, when
I spent several days on solving problems.
But even setting up the database is a big job for a new user. But the
LedgerSMB INSALL file describes this procedure step by step.

I wouldn´t always choose the latest version. Every major change of
version number could bring new bugs. Furthermore all the related 3rd
party utilities (mostly the precompiled packages) still depend on the
former release. The documentation is often one step behind. Many new
benefits and functions of the new version are simply not not necessary
for your small business.

After all the installation was complete, It took me several weeks
practising with LedgerSMB using a dummy Test-Company. It took another
week to set up the UNIX ODBC interface so I could use 3rd party DB admin
and reporting software in order to investigate LedgerSMB´s poorly
documented database. Make a transaction with LedgerSMB an look how the
acc_trans table changed. Then delete the entries manually and try again
with checkbock "tax included". What is different ? That´s how I found
out how it works step by step. 
Many field names are not obvious for non-accountants and beginners.
Luckily they provided a diagram, which shows the relations inside the
DB. But there is nearly nothing explained in the source code, which I
got with my version 1.2.12. They say, that good programming practise
used in LedgerSMB doesn´t require many words of comments, because the
source code is obvious and easy to undersand.
Yes, but mor than 30.000 lines of code can´t be easily read through just
in order to understand how to use the program. Although there is a user
manual, which gives a good introduction, it is not very detailed. It´s
not useful at all for simple users. You can do a lot by logical thinking
or try & error approaches, but there remain many things you simply can´t
know. For instance, I had to study the source code several hours, for I
wanted to know, whether/which wildcards are allowed for search
expressions - incredible ! 

The 1st time I saw the LedgerSMB userinterface I was quite disappointed.
No colours, no dropdown lists, no assistants, no help, no completion,
and lots of printing errors with LaTeX. Quite deterring, but I remained
strong and curious.

I found out that the dropdown lists will begin their life as soon as I
enter languages, group definitions, customers and vendors. My webbrowser
learns auto completion the more I enter in the fields. I began to alter
the existing HTML-templates in order to adopt them to my companies
requirements. By the time I like the user interface of LedgerSMB more
and more. Toghether with the right key bindings in the webbrowser, you
could really work fast. 

Again I had to search the source code for hints on what placeholders
and operators I can use in the printing templates. It took me approx. 1
week of continuos work in order to set up my own LaTeX class and a
"master" LedgerSMB template (from which I derived all others). Now I can
print really nice invoices - in contrast to the default templates, which
really look terrible.

Then I got overconfident and began to alter the database. I thought (and
still think), that in the standard LedgerSMB distribution there is
something missing for retailers like me: I need a packing unit. The
simple unit field is only text whereas a packing unit is a factor in the
formula, which calculates the cost of an item. It´s important, because
different wholesalers offer different packing units for the same
article.

I just added a packing unit to the partsvendor and orderitems tables.
Not only did I have to change the Database, but also the LedgerSMB user
interface forms, the printing interface and the templates and the code
which calculates the prices and the code related to database operations.
It brought me nearly 2 weeks of sleepless nights and 2 weeks of beeing
unable to print invoices, because I failed to make a redundant backup
installation on a different computer. (OK, you can have 2 Databases and
2 Virtual Webservers and 2 LedgerSMBs on the same machine, but that
makes more work than having a separate computer.)
I really recommend this, also for all kinds of updates to new versions.

I tried to contact the ledgersmb-mailing list. But I had to subscribe
first. After I got a subscription and password, I could log in, but I
could not send any message. All my EMails to the mailing list are
rejected by the server for some reason. Then I tried to contact some of
the developer team members directly via - up to now without any answer.

Sometimes I wish I had a commercial software with a nice melody in the
telephone hotline - because there is more responsibility ! Here alone
with LedgerSMB I am free but ...    

Think twice ! I could have earned a lot of money during that time I
spent with LedgerSMB - but I like it, somehow.

And here comes my beg: please ask on behalf of mine in the mailing list,
If some admin could investigate why I can´t post or If some of the
developers could get in contact with me, please ! I subscribed as
..hidden..

Thanks !


-- 
Suyo atentamente / Mit freundlichen Grüßen / With kindest regards

------Gerd Nennemann------------------------------
EMail:     ..hidden.. 
SnailMail: Ifach Yacht Service S.L.
           La Canuta, Buzón 1079
           E-03710 Calpe
           Spain
Phone:     +34 660 639 447
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