[Mono-devel-list] How hard is it to install Mono?

[Steve Deobald]

Fawad Halim wrote:

> Hi Duncan,
>     Here are the problems I found people encountered when they 
> installed mono
>
> 3. no mod_mono package.

This is the only real difficulty I've ever had installing mono using 
your packages, Duncan. It's pretty easy to overcome, but it is an 
annoyance. I'm thankful that Novell is willing to pay you to do such 
wonderful packaging at all - but a lot of other sysadmins I've talked to 
find this a stumbling block.

>
> That said, switching to a 2 package install is probably not a good 
> idea, as you'd always have people who don't want gtk-sharp on their 
> computers etc.

Agreed. I can't count the number of servers (and desktops, mind you) on 
which I've installed mono and been glad the packaging is so sane. The 
meta packages provide an easy way to get everything if a user isn't 
interested in picking out individual packages. This makes me wonder, 
though: how many people in the RPM world haven't discovered how awesome 
Red Carpet is yet? :)

Between Windows and Fedora, I don't see a lot of additional difficulty. 
The only other platform I've installed mono on so far is Debian-sid, 
which is comparable to the Red Carpet installation procedure. I think 
any attempt to make installing mono on Linux easier than this and you'll 
start to see diminishing returns.

-Steve