Mega compile et tu, Brutus

I was right!

Okay, sort of right. Even though this was a clean install of the package manager, there were a few hangovers from the previous install - including dbus. I'd forgotten to completely remove that, so when the new install compiled it and went to stage it for activation... it crashed, bringing the entire compile to a screeching halt.

That was about 10pm last night, and I didn't feel like dealing with it as I was already in bed. (You know it's bad when you notice the sudden quiet as the computer fan shuts down and realize something is wrong...) So this morning I removed the vestiges of the previous version, manually compiled dbus and startup scripts, and restarted the mega compile. Then headed out the door to bring the kid to school.

I fully expected the computer to still be cooking when I got home an hour and a half later, but it was quiet with a nice little note on proper startup techniques for the successfully compiled gnucash binary. Hope against hope!

Dashed when I tried to run the software! Dbus errors flying all over the place! oh yah, I hadn't rebooted since removing the old version and recompiling. And as soon as the reboot was completed - voilà! GnuCash lives! Went to start the tutorial...

Crash. Documentation not installed.

Okay, cool, I can live with that. The package manager can install the docs. So I fire it up. And it begins compiling FireFox-X11.

FireFox, if you didn't know, is also a hyper-complex piece of software with dozens, possibly hundreds, of dependencies. It's certainly at or near the bleading edge of browser development, outstripping its primary rival Internet Explorer, and is a really great piece of software. And I tend to use it by preference.

But I use the Quartz compile, not the X11 compile, because the Quartz window manager is native on a Mac while the X11 is, frankly, cruder. So I really really don't need FF-X11; I just need the documentation for GnuCash. But some idiot at the package manager insists that FF-X11 must be installed before downloading and installing the docs, and of course FF-X11 refuses to compile on my machine at the moment, and I cannot determine why.

Mega compile...

So, I wanna get my finances in order again.

I've done this several times in my life, and each time the work involved has been longer as the family finances steadily complexify with student and other loans, pension plans and tax-free savings, weirder and stranger revenue streams, taxes in two countries, a state and a province, and kid who is now of legal age in Canada and desperately trying to get a job and add a multiplier to the complexity.

Needless to say, I need a software which is up to the job.

Which, oddly enough, I actually know of. I've tried pretty much all the major labels, and the only one which can manage it is Moneyworks. Which is, undoubtedly, an excellent software, but has defeated three efforts to get it set up and running because it's too bloody intense. Accountants may love it, but I do not. Quicken and QuickBooks fail to meet specification. But the free software GnuCash has worked wonderfully for me in the past when I tried it. It was intuitive, well-explained, the set up was reasonably painless, and I got just as much functionality as I wanted even though the software was clearly more powerful.

And then I migrated to another computer, operating system, had an HD crash, blah blah blah, and I didn't keep up with my finances.

Once or twice over the intervening years I've tried to recompile the software using a package managing system which was supposed to keep up to date with the necessary libraries and dependencies. And each time it has failed. At the same time GnuCash has itself complexified, and now has more than 150 dependencies. Not a manual compile project for the faint of heart.

Still, after spending as much as I have on financial packages which haven't worked out, I think I need to put in the sweat to see if GnuCash is still as viable an option as I remember it being. So I spent a couple hours getting the latest compilers and Quartz libraries from Apple (Quartz is the window managing software that gives a Mac the Mac look and feel, as well as a butload of of OS services, because Mac quite literally 'floats' over the top of hyper powerful unix operating system.) Then almost 3 hours installing a large package manager and library as a completely clean install.

And then I wound it up and set it loose.

Now, this dual core intel laptop is *not* a power house. But it's steadily chugging away on the list of dependencies. So far, in 12 minutes, it's downloaded, verified, extracted, patched, configured, compiled, staged, installed, and activated 11 packages. The fan is blowing at top force, and my little cpu activity monitor seems pegged up around 80% with occasional bursts above 100% for each chip (which I *still* don't understand.) I've been here before, and I know that each round of dependencies will take longer to compile as they build on each other and slowly create a skeleton and flesh it out one layer at a time.

I'm going to make a guess this is going to take until sometime tomorrow afternoon or so, unless a fatal error causes the manager to explode.

Which, if I'm completely honest, is the outcome I'm expecting.

Fruitcake!

Okay, so I was wandering through the post-holiday crap sales the other day and there it was! it was perfect! The heirloom fruitcake, "just like your grandma used to make!" It had shiny fruit and nuts on top, and a rich dark-crusted cake below. And it was made of plastic, so you'd never worry about someone/something eating it and dying.

On the other hand, there's no time like the present to start a family tradition.

So, since I'd already purchased most of the ingredients (last fall), I quick (not!) whipped out a fruitcake. And, if I start sousing it once it's cooled (tomorrow), it might be ready for gifting next year.

First off, a fruitcake is not for the faint of kitchen skills heart. It's not a particularly difficult thing to make, but it does take the better part of a day. (which reminds me of this XKCD comic...) Example: the one which is currently in the oven. Still. (I lied - it's not done yet so I can't have whipped it out yet.)

To begin, fire your oven to very slow... ever notice that nobody writes new fruitcake recipes? there's gotta be a reason. Anyway, very slow oven is about 120C, or 250F. Okay, honestly you don't need to preheat your oven yet; it's going to take for frigging ever to get this whole shindig together.

To start with, you'll be baking this in a tube pan, known as an angelfood cake pan in our house. Prepare this first because it's going to be a royal pain in the putukus. You will need generous quantities of both shortening and baker's parchment. If you don't know what that is, it's a paper you can use to line cookie sheets and other baking pans and the cookies will slide right off as well as leave your baking pans unbesmirched - the coolest thing I ever learned about baking was how to use baking parchment. Anyway, cut a circle of parchment to fit the bottom of your tube pan. Now cut a strip to fit the outside of the pan; this required a pretty long piece for my pan, so I ended up wasting a lot of paper figuring it out. Once you have pieces that fit, put a heavy layer of shortening on the pan, and grease one side of the parchment. Put the parchment in the pan so the greased side of the parchment will be toward the cake. Now arrange any nuts, candied cherries, candied pineapple, or whatnot you want on the top of the cake on the bottom of the pan, remembering to turn the nuts (pecan or walnut halves) upside down so they show up correctly when the cake is out of the pan.

Better gather your ingredients, it may take a while. Three and a third cups cake flour. No, general purpose flour won't do. (Maybe it would, but with this much money in dried and candied fruit I'm not taking chances.) A teaspoon each of baking powder, salt, and cinnamon, and a half-teaspoon each of cloves and mace. No, nutmeg won't do. Sift these together thoroughly (the recipe says do it three times, but I did a heavy mix by hand and then a single sifting.)

On to the slow stuff! Plump four and a half cups of raisins, and four and a half cups of currants, in a very large bowl by pouring boiling water over and setting aside for a bit. Measure out a cup of citron peel (be wary: most grocers try to pass off 'mixed peel' as citron peel - it isn't.) Beat 6 eggs together thoroughly. Have grape juice and light molasses at the ready to be measured.

Now, actually starting to mix, take a 1/2 pound of butter (1 cup) and cream it very well. Cream in one cup of sugar. Add beaten eggs, but don't worry about trying to get it perfectly blended; it ain't gonna happen. Add drained fruit, 1/4 cup grape juice, and 3/4 cup light molasses, and mix thoroughly. Add the flour mixture in 3 or 4 additions, beating after each addition until smooth and completely blended.

Carefully turn the batter into the prepared tube pan, trying not to dislodge your pretty patterns (it is actually more common at bakeries to add this bric-a-brac after the cake is done, gluing it down with a corn syrup varnish. But I figured I'd be old fashioned about it.) Then put it in the very slow oven for 4.5 to 5 hours, or until done.

No, I have no friggin' clue how to test if this cake is done. At a guess, the toothpick or silver knife test half way between the outside and inside edges.

Anyway, cool the cake almost completely before trying to unmold the sucker. At least, that's what I'm gonna do. I suspect being a bit premature will result in the cake crumbling out of the pan.

I should mention I found this recipe (with ever so slightly different directions/commentary) online. Natch. And, unlike most fruitcakes, it doesn't have any nuts except decoratively, although the currants are sometimes a bit seedy.