[gentoo-user] Open Source Family Tree software?

[gentoo-user] Open Source Family Tree software?

[Mark Knecht]

Anyone have any recommendations of something in portage. (Or not in portage?)

I found gramps in portage. I did not find Lifelines. I haven't
uncovered any other project names as yet.

Thanks,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] Open Source Family Tree software?

[Daniel Pielmeier]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 368 bytes --]

Mark Knecht schrieb am 29.11.2008 19:34:
> Anyone have any recommendations of something in portage. (Or not in portage?)
> 
> I found gramps in portage. I did not find Lifelines. I haven't
> uncovered any other project names as yet.
> 
> Thanks,
> Mark
> 
> 

I do not use it myself but I know there is gramps and it is in portage:

Regards,

Daniel


[-- Attachment #2: OpenPGP digital signature --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 260 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-user] Open Source Family Tree software?

[Arttu V.]

On 11/29/08, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> Anyone have any recommendations of something in portage. (Or not in
> portage?)

Wikipedia has some, they've even tried to categorize a bit and made
some tables of the basic features:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_genealogy_software

> I found gramps in portage. I did not find Lifelines. I haven't
> uncovered any other project names as yet.

I set up my sister's old Ubuntu box to have gramps installed and (what
I've heard) she has been using it successfully for her intermittent
lightweight hobby genealogy studies of our relatives from previous
centuries.

I don't actually know much about these genealogy systems, so I don't
know if such light-weight use is what you have in mind -- and whether
gramps is a major beast or only usable for this kind of "playtoy-use".

-- 
Arttu V.

Re: [gentoo-user] Open Source Family Tree software?

[Mark Knecht]

On Sat, Nov 29, 2008 at 2:25 PM, Arttu V. <arttuv69@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/29/08, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Anyone have any recommendations of something in portage. (Or not in
>> portage?)
>
> Wikipedia has some, they've even tried to categorize a bit and made
> some tables of the basic features:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_genealogy_software
>
>> I found gramps in portage. I did not find Lifelines. I haven't
>> uncovered any other project names as yet.
>
> I set up my sister's old Ubuntu box to have gramps installed and (what
> I've heard) she has been using it successfully for her intermittent
> lightweight hobby genealogy studies of our relatives from previous
> centuries.
>
> I don't actually know much about these genealogy systems, so I don't
> know if such light-weight use is what you have in mind -- and whether
> gramps is a major beast or only usable for this kind of "playtoy-use".
>
> --
> Arttu V.

Thanks. I appreciate the responses.

For what I've seen so far gramps looks like it might be the best for a
really casual Linux user and it's likely my wife will start with that.
The sort of bigger issue is once you've got your tree put together, as
best you know it, then linking it up with other trees from other folks
you don't know is a really valuable thing to do. The commercial
software guys, like Family Tree Maker, have huge contributed databases
of family trees submitted by other FTM customers. It's sort of a
racket but you can subscribe to their service and then work to link
yourself up with other groups from your extended family if they have
made contributions. I'm told the problem is you don't really know if
there's anything in their database until you start paying but you can
do it for a month or two just to see how it works out. It seems that
gramps is doing something sort of like this but one wonders just how
large their database is. Also, I'd hate for my wife to do a lot of
work entering a few hundred people only to find she cannot use the
gramps data with anything but gramps.

Might be best just to pay the money and take our chance with FTM
longer-term but maybe she'll like playing with gramps on her Linux
machine. It's really up to her. I'm just her sys-admin.

Cheers,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] Open Source Family Tree software?

[Daniel Pielmeier]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 659 bytes --]

Mark Knecht schrieb am 30.11.2008 00:29:

> It seems that
> gramps is doing something sort of like this but one wonders just how
> large their database is. Also, I'd hate for my wife to do a lot of
> work entering a few hundred people only to find she cannot use the
> gramps data with anything but gramps.

Gramps has support for the GEDCOM format, which I remember was also used
by another program I tried some years ago. GEDCOM is according to the
gramps homepage an industry standard, so it should be possible to
exchange your data with all other programs supporting this standard.

http://gramps-project.org/wiki/index.php?title=Features


[-- Attachment #2: OpenPGP digital signature --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 260 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-user] Open Source Family Tree software?

[Mark Knecht]

On Sat, Nov 29, 2008 at 3:45 PM, Daniel Pielmeier
<daniel.pielmeier@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Mark Knecht schrieb am 30.11.2008 00:29:
>
>> It seems that
>> gramps is doing something sort of like this but one wonders just how
>> large their database is. Also, I'd hate for my wife to do a lot of
>> work entering a few hundred people only to find she cannot use the
>> gramps data with anything but gramps.
>
> Gramps has support for the GEDCOM format, which I remember was also used
> by another program I tried some years ago. GEDCOM is according to the
> gramps homepage an industry standard, so it should be possible to
> exchange your data with all other programs supporting this standard.
>
> http://gramps-project.org/wiki/index.php?title=Features
>
>

Cool. thanks.

I suppose she can try entering just a few names and then see if she
can talk to FTM.

I'm not sure any of this is important to her. Just trying to get a bit ahead.

Thanks,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] Open Source Family Tree software?

[David Relson]

On Sat, 29 Nov 2008 16:05:48 -0800
Mark Knecht wrote:

> On Sat, Nov 29, 2008 at 3:45 PM, Daniel Pielmeier
> <daniel.pielmeier@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > Mark Knecht schrieb am 30.11.2008 00:29:
> >
> >> It seems that
> >> gramps is doing something sort of like this but one wonders just
> >> how large their database is. Also, I'd hate for my wife to do a
> >> lot of work entering a few hundred people only to find she cannot
> >> use the gramps data with anything but gramps.
> >
> > Gramps has support for the GEDCOM format, which I remember was also
> > used by another program I tried some years ago. GEDCOM is according
> > to the gramps homepage an industry standard, so it should be
> > possible to exchange your data with all other programs supporting
> > this standard.
> >
> > http://gramps-project.org/wiki/index.php?title=Features
> >
> >
> 
> Cool. thanks.
> 
> I suppose she can try entering just a few names and then see if she
> can talk to FTM.
> 
> I'm not sure any of this is important to her. Just trying to get a
> bit ahead.
> 
> Thanks,
> Mark

As stated by others, gramps is in portage.  It's a python app and
works well with adequate hardware.  (On a 500mhz geode with 256mb
it's rather slow.  On an AMD-64 with 4gb it's pleasantly fast).

The newest (experimental) version is 3.0.4 which is working well for me.
The previous version, 3.0.3, had some expectations about BerkeleyDB
which could cause an unhandled exception.

I'm not sure about exporting to FTM, but I was able to import
without problems from FTM (which I used several years ago).  I've also
been able to transfer between Gramps and PAF using the GEDCOM format.
(Note:  PAF requires WINE).

HTH,

David