Over the weekend, I released a new Mono combined installer for Win32 that is based on 1.0.4 technologies (Mono 1.0.4, Gtk# 1.0.4 and XSP 1.0.4). The Gtk# UI portions are still based on GTK+ 2.2.4 for Windows.
The "tricked-out" Cygwin installation that I have put together proved itself invaluable for this release. The time it took to produced 1.0.2 was about 18 hours. For 1.0.4 it took about 6 hours. There are a lot of advantages to building Mono and it's associated technologies with the Mono C# Compiler and the Mono Runtime over using the Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 SDK. The building of a few of the pieces (Novell.Directory.Ldap and Mono.CSharp.Debugger to mention a couple) would make a grown man cry unless built with an All-Mono suite.
The next step in the realm of Mono for Win32 installers is the Gtk# SDK and Gtk# Runtime for 1.0.4. I also have to update the Visual Studio Add-in to build and deploy on systems using 1.0.4. Prj2make-sharp has been neglected and should be upgraded to handle Visual Basic .NET 2003 projects since I understand that the Mono BASIC (mbas.exe) has made such progress! I am now studying the possibility of a development or technology preview installer for Mono 1.1.2 and the Gtk# in HEAD CVS that is intended to bind to GTK 2.4.
I devoted a sizeable amount of time building Gecko# in Win32. I decided to stop work on Gecko# for Win32 until Mark Crichton contact me. I sent him an email asking him for his Mozilla configuration file (.mozconfig) and he has either not seen it yet or has not been able to reply. I managed to build Mozilla 1.7.3 from source in Win32 - for those who have never tried that, let me tell you that it is an adventure in itself! - but now need to tell it is using --enable-default-toolkit-gtk2 but somehow not use X windows in the process.
Looking for a quick win, I turned to "mod_mono.so" on Apache 2.x Windows version. Like Mozilla and other fine cross-platform projects it is tricky to just build the Win32 version from source. As you may know, I have a fairly strong background on Win32 C/C++ development using Microsoft Platform SDK and things like MFC/ATL technologies. It is challenging to due away with that knowledge or at least shelve it in favor of the Netscape Portable Runtime (nspr) or the Apache Portable Runtime (aspr) to work inside these projects. I am so tempted to do a ::CreateProcess to invoke mod-mono-server.exe as opposed to a apr_proc_create call.
Then I read the email thread in the Mono mailing list spawned by the message titled "Ask Microsoft: Mono support". I felt ready to discontinue work towards any Microsoft related product ever again for fear of feeling like a Nazi collaborator. It so happens that out of all of the other Monitos that are friends of mine, I am the one that has decided to do all of the Win32 empowerment. That's right, my work actually makes it so that if you are a Windows programmer you can still enjoy all of the work that the Mono, Apache and Mozilla communities donate from within the Microsoft OS and with Microsoft Visual Studio. Heh, one could even argue that this sells Microsoft software.
Message from Paco to Microsoft: Cut that out, grow up and stop the FUD. The days of becoming obscenely rich with closed-software sales are over. A new dawn were communities collaborate, share and participate with some degree of harmony has arrived. If you can't play nicely, you will not be picked by any team and even if you own a bat, glove and ball, you will be sent home packing. Just because you are a rich kid does not mean that I will not play with you, but don't think for a moment that you are indispensable. You may find yourself having to play with your butler in your back yard all by your self.
Finally in a quest for happiness and fun I installed Ubuntu in a desktop computer and an old notebook one. I love it! The installation was almost child proof and when it was all done a beautiful GNOME desktop strongly reminiscent of XD running on Red Hat 9.0 emerged. Oh my God! It is so cool, and my wireless PCMCIA Card on the notebook worked out of the shoot. Thank you Edd Dumbill for the recommendation.
Now, is just a matter of getting out of Iraq and obtaining all the new Novell OSes (SuSe 9.2 Pro, Novell Linux Desktop, etc.) released and we will all live in a better world!
Er, dude, it was a marketing manager from Microsoft, what did you expect them to say, "oh, lawl, linux is bettar than us!!!" ?
I'm sure the people on the .NET team - you know, the actual people that do stuff - who work with the Mono gang *really* appreciate your message.
Posted by: Yo Diggity at November 1, 2004 11:38 AMPlease don't let Microsoft discourage you. I develop in a primarily Windows environment, and a Win32 mod_mono would help me test for cross-platform compatibility. And even if I couldn't run under linux, I could at least use apache instead of iis...
Casey
Posted by: cmars at November 3, 2004 03:48 PM