[Mono-list] Errors installing gtk-sharp-gapi

[Paul]

Hi,

> OK, here is my feedback to the Mono team regarding my installation 
> experiences.  I hope it doesn't sound too complaining or preachy.  The 
> bottom line is I hope the Mono team will really improve the 
> installation instructions.  

I've said this quite a lot and so have had this in quite wide
circulation

http://www.all-the-johnsons.co.uk/mono - I still don't know why it isn't
linked to the main mono site as I get a heck of a lot of traffic!

> I think it is going to be important to the 
> adoption of Mono for people to be able to get it up and running, 
> regardless of their distro or, for example, which freakin' version of 
> glibc they have installed.  

Yes with respects to the distro, but if compiled from source, neither
make a fig of difference

> Ultimately I'd like to see Mono be more 
> configuration tolerant and install all the necessary dependencies its 
> needs.

Something like yum for mono would be useful. Hold on, we have that...

> At the very least, the instructions should be much more helpful 
> than they are about exactly what the dependencies are, and where to get 
> them.

I made a start on the unofficial FAQ - see the URL above.

> The Mono web site is terribly unhelpful, misleading, and just plain 
> wrong about stuff it tells you.

No it's not. I've found quite a lot of stuff of use on there.

> Let's take this example here.  The very first sentence of the RedHat 9 
> installation page says "The best way to install Mono on your system is 
> to use Novell's Red Carpet.  If you do not already have Red Carpet, you 
> can download it."  

Personally, I'd move distro. RedCarpet is a very good way to reimplement
up2date, but it's not really that much more (IMHO)

> The link to download Red Carpet is not helpful at 
> all.  It doesn't tell you which files you need, or what order you need 
> to install them.  My experience has been that installing Red Carpet was 
> just as difficult as installing Mono without Red Carpet.

From memory (and this is going back a bit), you select the distro, that
takes you to a live downloader and you take it from there. Isn't the
alternative something like 3 rpms?

> But I wonder if your opinion of not using Red Carpet is the majority 
> opinion on this site.  If it is the majority opinion, then why does the 
> Mono web site continue to recommend using Red Carpet?  

My opinion is just that - an opinion. Having built mono dozens of times
now on different distros and architectures (well, helped on the
different architectures), there really isn't that much of bind building
from source any more. RedCarpet (again from memory) is very good at
sorting dependencies.

> And once you 
> install Red Carpet, it still doesn't work, because it doesn't give you 
> the perl-XML-* stuff that gtk-sharp-gapi needs, and doesn't tell you 
> where to get it from.

They should be resolvable via RedCarpet. Which channels are you
subscribed to?

> Now you say that compiling from source is better, because that removes 
> the dependency issues.  That has not been my experience at all.  I have 
> tried to compile from source, and I still have dependency problems 
> (this is especially true for me when I try to compile MonoDevelop, 
> which is a different mailing list, I know).

While building MonoDevelop is on a different list, I'll be very
interested to know what dependency issues you're encountering.

> Speaking of MonoDevelop, their web site suffers from similar 
> inaccuracies.  They say *not* to compile from source unless you 
> absolutely have to, and even go on to say that the Mono project web 
> site contains pre-built binaries!!! Hah.  If that's true, I sure 
> haven't found them.

http://www.monodevelop.com/tutorials/package_install.aspx

Binaries should be on go-mono.com which redirects to the main site which
doesn't look to have a RH9 binary for monodevelop.

> I just hate to 
> see that effort wasted by poor and inaccurate setup instructions.

It is somewhat annoying.

I would enter a bugzilla report (bugzilla.ximian.com) for a RH9 build of
MonoDevelop.

Sorry to hear you're having problems. Post here the exact problems
you're seeing and you'll find answers very quickly.

TTFN

Paul
-- 
"A lot of football success is in the mind. You must believe you are the
best and then make sure that you are. In my time at Liverpool we always
said we had the best two teams on Merseyside, Liverpool and Liverpool
Reserves." - Bill Shankly
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