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

[Stacey Abshire]

Hello Duncan...

It is interesting that you bring this up...  I have been following the progress
of mono for some time now, and I am getting ready to setup a box for doing
development with it.  I am planning on using RedHat 9, and so I downloaded the
mono-all.zip...  hoping in it would be a script to install the packages...  no
luck.  So I guess when I sit down and do this, I am going to have to go through
all of the packages by hand, or install Red Carpet (which i care very little
for) and use it.  

For me, this kind of sucks.  I think it would be nice to have the two
packages...  one for runtime and one for development.  I think that the two
packages should include everything.  I think those who want less than all is a
lot less than those who want it all.  Just my opinion mind you.  In this case
someone who wants to use mono apps downloads one package and then double clicks
from nautilus or Konquerer, and they are done.  If they want to develop, they
gran the other package as well, and do the same.  Yeah, the downloads will be
large, but it is no different in the MS world...  I know, I write .NET apps at
my job, and the .NET framework is no small animal.

One other thing, and I really don't want to get flames on this, but it would be
very cool, if you guys could work with the Linspire group to bring the mono
runtime, and mono development tools to that linux platform.  I use it for my
desktop at home, and I find that it is a great linux desktop.  No flames on the
money for free software.  I think it would be nice to have mono in the
Click-N-Run warehouse.  If I knew wnough to package it correctly for Linspire,
I would do so, and add it myself, but I don't.

In any case, just some thoughts from a developer who is considering starting
.NET development on linux, providing I can make it painless.

Stacey Abshire

--- Duncan Mak <duncan@ximian.com> wrote:


> Hello all,
> 
> We are in the process of re-evaluating the way we package Mono, in doing
> so, I'd like to get some feedback from you all.
> 
> When we entered the 1.0 beta cycle, we split the previous setup of two
> packages (mono, mono-devel) into smaller packages, believing that it
> will provide greater flexibility for users, who may wish to selectively
> install only certain parts of the whole release.
> 
> We received a lot of feedback from this change: some said that it was a
> bad decision, as it made the installation process more complicated;
> others said it worked great for them for it fit their use case more
> closely.
> 
> During the 1.0 beta cycle, the package dependency listing was hand
> written and buggy. That was the source of a lot of broken, incomplete
> installations reported [1]; later in the beta cycle, we switched to
> using a script that calculates dependencies based on assembly
> references. With that, our current set of packages is a lot less buggy
> now [2].
> 
> To further facilitate end-users, two meta packages were created:
> 'mono-complete' and 'mono-complete-devel'. Installing these packages
> requires installing every package we ship. Effectively, this mimics the
> old 'mono' and 'mono-devel' package.
> 
> We made available 'mono-all' zip files on the download page, containing
> all the packages we ship for that particular release.
> 
> On top of downloading packages from the download page, there are two
> additional ways of installing Mono: either through the 'mono' channel on
> Red Carpet, or with our YUM repository for Fedora users. Both mechanisms
> will resolve dependencies problems for you.
> 
> Some questions:
> 
> How do you install Mono right now? What do you do to upgrade?
> 
> Is Mono too difficult to install for people new to Linux? For people
> with Linux experience?
> 
> Do you think switching back to a two package setup is a good idea?
> 
> 
> A lot of Mono users are new to Linux, and it is evident that the
> installation procedure for Windows (Paco's excellent installer) and Mac
> OS X (the dmg image from Adam) is far simpler than the various
> mechanisms available on Linux. We like to make the installation
> experience on Linux as simple as the others as well.
> 
> Thanks so much!
> 
> Duncan.
> 
> [1] e.g. mono-web-services requires mono-web-forms, but the dependency
> was not encoded in the RPM.
> 
> [2] Frequently the mono-preview package gets installed in place of other
> packages, resulting in broken installations. This has been fixed in CVS
> and will be rolled out in the next release.
> _______________________________________________
> Mono-devel-list mailing list
> Mono-devel-list@lists.ximian.com
> http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-devel-list
> 


=====
sabshire@yahoo.com
You will never "find" time for anything. If you want time you must make it. -- Charles Buxton


		
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