[Mono-list] I give up / Mac OS X PPC support

[Urs Muff]

I feel your pain, trust me!

One thing I have to say: installing mono has gotten much easier:
- Install fink from fink.sourceforge.net
- Make sure to be adding the unstable tree (either with Fink Commander ->
Preferences -> Fink
	- use unstable packages
	- use unstable cryptography packages
  Or by adding unstable/main unstable/crypto in the line Tree: of the file
/sw/etc/fink.conf
- do a self update 'fink selfupdate-cvs'
- install mono 'fink install mono'

That's it!  It installs all the dependencies and it just works.  Right now
it's 0.31.

I got gtk-sharp compiling on my local machine but it is not working to a
point where we can use it.

I'm working on a Cocoa / Objective-C integration using Xcode and Interface
Builder for Mac OS X and Mono.

Down the road you may be able to run gtk-sharp on Mac or Windows, or run
Windows.Forms on *nix and Mac, but I would not recommend that, since
- Gtk is the native UI platform for *nix
- Windows.Forms is the native UI platform for Windows
- and, Cocoa is the native UI platform for Mac OS X

You will NOT achieve a native look and feel using a NON-native UI platform!
That is my opinion, and is the current trend amongst many other developers.
Just look at java.awt and you know what I'm talking about.

To be fair to the mono team, THEY ARE WORKING ON IT!  (Getting Mac OS X up
and running).
Miguel just checked in some runtime fixes about 1 hour ago, and Paolo is
working on it as far as I know full time!
Yes, it needs more love, but we can only achieve that by helping each other,
getting the basics running, and reaching a critical mass, giving up will not
help the process!  I know how painful it is right now!

Please continue trying to use it and report problems by using bugzilla.
We need to continue to push to get forward.

- URS C. MUFF
SOFTWARE ARCHITECT	- RESEARCH LAB

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-----Original Message-----
From: mono-list-admin@lists.ximian.com
[mailto:mono-list-admin@lists.ximian.com] On Behalf Of Griffin Caprio
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2004 11:24 AM
To: Attila Balogh
Cc: Jeffrey McManus; mono-list@lists.ximian.com
Subject: Re: [Mono-list] I give up / Mac OS X PPC support

> my  problem with gtk# personally is that mac os x is not supported. 
> although you can find people who hacked it together, if  you co it 
> from cvs, and install it, the samples don't work. i don't have a linux 
> box, only a mac, and i would love to play with mono on it, but it's 
> been two months now, and i don't feel any closer.
>
> there are also problems with xsp, and sometimes mono doesn't compile 
> either (i mean cvs version).
> regards,

Grudgingly, I have to agree with above statement(s).  Mono support for 
Mac OS X/ PPC is fragile at best.  I even tried to put together a page 
on the basic steps ( 
http://homepage.mac.com/griffincaprio/mono/RunningMonoOnMacOSX.html ), 
but I have all but given up trying to maintain that page.  This is 
because mono not reliable from day to day, release to release, on the 
PPC / Mac OS X platform.

I am not saying that running off the CVS tree is the most stable way to 
work, but this goes for the releases also.  0.29 worked on the PPC, 
0.30 didn't  without some major hacking.  0.31 doesn't work reliably, 
either.

Some of the steps I have taken to compile mono include:
- configure switches
- external, 3rd party source downloads
- editing actual code/headers to accommodate the PPC platform.

What's worse, is that when I encounter errors, i receive almost no help 
on the mailing lists.  Some of these are not doubt strange errors, and 
some are very common, but my posts go unanswered either way.

I haven't even gotten to gtk#...

Segmentation faults, bus errors, frozen compiles, etc....  The list 
goes on and on.  I hope to come back to mono in a few months, when/if 
PPC support is better.  But for now, I feel that it's a lost cause.

- Griffin

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