Using Linux

I’ve only given GnuCash a week, but I’m afraid that is enough to discourage me.

Quicken is one of those indispensable Windows programs to me. I’ve been using it for about six years and with every transaction entered, my financial history becomes more valuable to me. I really want to find a personal finance program that natively runs in Linux to use instead, but I need the same functionality.

I remember trying GnuCash years ago and it was very barebones software. It has improved, I can tell. The double-entry accounting part of it was not hard to get used to. Instead, the first hint I wouldn’t like it very much was that the reports were not able to be modified on the fly (i.e., changing the date range or accounts to include). I like looking at graphical representations of my data from different angles and through different lenses without much hassle. I have a feeling that I could get all the reports I want if I customize them all ahead of time. I’m not sure I’m willing to step into that learning curve right now.

Today I couldn’t find a way to fix the problem that the General Ledger only scrolls back one month. In Quicken I quite often scroll up to view old transactions because the old transactions are often very similar to current ones. I searched in the Preferences for an option to change this behavior, but I could not find a simple solution.

For now I’ll continue to use Quicken through VMware Server and a virtual Windows XP installation. I have subscribed to the GnuCash feed to keep abreast of changes that could change my mind, though.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 9th, 2007 at 4:39 pm and is filed under Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.