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

[Kevin Dietz]

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

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

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."  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.

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?  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.

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).

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.

I do think Mono has a lot of potential to become a mainstream 
cross-platform programming platform.  I know a lot of people on this 
mailing list are doing a lot of really good, hard work.  I just hate to 
see that effort wasted by poor and inaccurate setup instructions.

- Kevin



On Aug 17, 2005, at 3:35 PM, Paul F. Johnson wrote:

> Hi,
>
>> I’m trying to install Mono on Red Hat 9 using Red Carpet, because
>> that’s what the web site says is the best way to do it.
>
> RedCarpet is a pretty cool way of updating things, but really, for Mono
> I really would suggest building your own. Simplest reason for doing 
> this
> is that you don't get the deps problems!
>
> 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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