<a href="#gnome">Mono and GNOME</a><br>
<a href="#gui">Building GUI applications with Mono</a><br>
<a href="#msft">Mono and Microsoft</a><br>
+<a href="#platforms">Mono platforms</a><br>
<a href="#pnpproject">Mono and the Portable.NET Project</a><br>
<a href="#webservices">Web Services</a><br>
<a href="#asp">Mono and ASP.NET</a><br>
A: Different parts of Mono will achieve usability at different stages,
once we are comfortable with the compiler, we will release "Mono Core",
which contains everything needed to develop applications with the base
- class libraries. This should be available at some point during 2002.
+ class libraries, this will happen soon and in the meantime you can
+ download daily snapshots of our work. Also the full ASP.NET support is
+ close to completion.
- Other higher level class libraries (ASP.NET, ADO.NET) will
+ Other higher level class libraries (ASP.NET, ADO.NET, WinForms) will
be released when they become stable.
Q: What major components will you include in Mono?
A: Hopefully everything that Microsoft ships on their Framework
- (ADO.NET, ASP.NET), and
- we encourage third party developers to create reusable components that
- work on both Mono and Windows.
+ (ADO.NET, ASP.NET, WinForms), and we encourage third party developers to
+ create reusable components that work on both Mono and Windows.
Q: How can I contribute?
Q: Is Microsoft helping Ximian with this project?
-A: No. Ximian CTO Miguel de Icaza had a friendly conversation with
- Microsoft software architect David Stutz, but that's about the
- extent of the contact. Microsoft is interested in other
- implementations of .NET and are willing to help make the ECMA spec
- more accurate for this purpose.
+A: There is no high level communication between Ximian and Microsoft
+ at this point, but engineers who work on .NET or the ECMA groups
+ have been very friendly, and very nice to answer our questions, or
+ clarify part of the specification for us.
- Ximian representatives have also spoken with Sam Ruby at the ECMA
- TG3 committee to discuss the same issues.
+ Microsoft is interested in other implementations of .NET and are
+ willing to help make the ECMA spec more accurate for this purpose.
+
+ Ximian was also invited to participate in the ECMA committee
+ meetings for C# and the CLI.
Q: Is Microsoft or Corel paying Ximian to do this?
Alliance APIs. The problem is people on the web provider end that might use
this for authentication.
+<a name="platforms"></a>
+** Mono Platforms
+
+Q: What operating systems does Mono run on?
+
+A: Mono is known to run on Linux, Unix and Windows systems.
+
+Q: What architectures does Mono support?
+
+A: Mono today ships with a Just-in-Time compiler for x86-based
+ systems. It is tested regularly on Linux, FreeBSD and Windows
+ (with the XP/NT core).
+
+ There is also an interpreter, which is slower that runs on the
+ s390, SPARC and PowerPC architectures.
+
+Q: Can Mono run on Windows 9x, or ME editions?
+
+A: Mono requires Unicode versions of Win32 APIs to run,
+ and only a handful of *W functions is supported under Win9x.
+
+ There is Microsoft Layer for Unicode that provides implementation
+ of these APIs on 9x systems.
+
+ Unfortunately it uses linker trick for delayed load that is not
+ supported by ld, so some sort of adapter is necessary.
+
+ You will need MSLU and one of the following libs to link Mono to
+ unicows.dll <a
+ href="http://mono.eurosoft.od.ua/files/unimono.zip">http://mono.eurosoft.od.ua/files/unimono.zip</a>
+ or alternatively search the net for "libunicows".
+
+ No changes to Mono source code required, the only thing is to make
+ sure that linker will resolve imports to adapter library instead of
+ Win32 libs. This is achieved by inserting -lunimono before
+ -lkerner32/user32 in the linker's specs file.
+
+
<a name="pnpproject"></a>
** Mono and Portable.NET
It is easier to describe what is unique about Mono:
<ul>
+ <li> A Just-in-Time compiler engine. This is important for
+ making your applications fast.
+
<li> A self-hosting C# compiler written in C#, which is clean, easy
to maintain.
+ <li> Focus on the .NET Framework: we are tracking down the .NET
+ Framework API definition, as we believe it is the API people
+ will be most familiar with.
+
<li> A multi-platform runtime engine: both a JIT engine and an
interpreter exist. The JIT engine runs currently on x86
- systems, while the interpreter works on SPARC, StrongARM and
- PowerPC systems.
+ systems, while the interpreter works on SPARC, StrongARM,
+ s390 and PowerPC systems.
<li> Supports Linux, Windows and Solaris at this point.
<li> We have a great community of developers, without which Mono
would not be possible.
- <li> We will provide an ahead of time compilation mode in the
- future.
+ <li> We are working on an ahead of time compilation mode to
+ pre-compile code for the target architecture (this is part
+ of our new code generation effort).
</ul>
<a name="webservices"></a>
exposing it to other RPC systems (like CORBA) is really simple, and
does not even require support from an object.
- We will be implementing CORBA inter-operation as an extension to the
- Mono classes so that we can integrate with Bonobo, just like
- Microsoft provides COM inter-operation classes and support
- mechanisms.
+ <a href="http://remoting-corba.sourceforge.net/">Remoting.CORBA</a> is
+ a CORBA implementation that is gaining momentum.
+
+ Building an implementation of the Bonobo interfaces once this is ready
+ should be relatively simple.
Q: Can I serialize my objects to other things other than XML?
Q: Will Mono use ORBit?
-A: No. Mono will be using a new implementation of CORBA that isn't still started.
+A: There are a few advantages in using ORBit, like reusing existing code
+ and leveraging all the work done on it. Michael Meeks has posted
+ a few <a href="http://lists.ximian.com/archives/public/mono-list/2002-September/008592.html">reasons</a>,
+ as well as some <a href="http://lists.ximian.com/archives/public/mono-list/2002-September/008657.html">ideas</a>
+ that could be used to reuse ORBit.
+
+ Most users are likely to choose a native .NET solution, like <a href="http://cvs.gnome.org/bonsai">Remoting.CORBA</a>
+
<a name="monodoc"></a>
** MonoDoc
A: Maybe well be doing some sort of automated build process + testing when
the summer finish.
+Q: My C code uses the __stdcall which is not availble on Linux, how can I
+ make the code portable Windows/Unix across platforms?
+
+A: Replace the __stdcall attribute with the STDCALL macro, and include this
+ in your C code for newer gcc versions:
+
+ #ifndef STDCALL
+ #define STDCALL __attribute__((stdcall))
+ #endif
+
<a name="asp">
** Mono and ASP.NET
-Q: Is Mono supporting ASP.NET?
+Q: Does Mono support ASP.NET?
+
+A: Yes.
-A: Yes. The development of the support for ASP.NET comes in various stages,
- here is what Gonzalo has been working on: 1. The Parser. 2. Getting the
- parser to generate output compatible with ASP.NET. 3. Running the sample
- output with the real Microsoft runtime but using our generated page. 4.
- Running the sample with our classes with the .NET runtime. 5. Running
- our sample code with our classes with our runtime. This is the process
- we are following. Currently Gonzalo has reached point 5.
+ Mono supports ASP.NET, we have shown an unmodified IBuySpy
+ installation running on Mono as well as various other programs. You can
+ try it yourself downloading the XSP server.
Q: Do I need install cygwin to work on ASP.NET in mono or Linux is enough since
it is self host right now.
A: Linux is enough.
+Q: How can I run ASP.NET-based applications with Mono?
+
+A: You need the Mono runtime and a hosting web server. Currently we distribute a
+ small web server called `xsp' which is used to debug applications, or you can choose
+ to use Daniel's Apache 2 module.
+
Q: Any plan to make ASP.NET in mono works with Apache in Linux?.
-A: Yes, we have plans to do so, but we need to wait for Patrik's patches to
- HttpRuntime. Once that is there, writing a mod_mono should be trivial
- (look at mono/samples/embed for a sample embedded application).
+A: Daniel has authored an Apache2 Module for Mono that hosts the ASP.NET runtime
+ and is available here: <a
+ href="http://apacheworld.org/modmono/">http://apacheworld.org/modmono/</a>
+
+Q: Will you support Apache 1?
+
+A: Modules developed for Apache 2 are not compatible with Apache 1.3
+ Daniel plans to support Apache 1.3 in the future but the current focus is on
+ Apache 2, because of the better support for threading and Windows.
+
+Q: Can I run Apache 1 and Apache 2 on the same machine?
+
+ You can always keep a copy of Apache 2 running in paralell with your Apache
+ 1.3 (either different port or using a reverse proxy).
+
+ You can also bind the two servers to different IP addresses on the
+ same physical machine.
<a name="ado">
** Mono and ADO.NET
you can be sure that things will work the same in Mono as with the Microsoft
implementation.
+Q: Does Mono can to connect to Sybase by using Mono.Data.*?
+
+A: Yes. use Mono.Data.SybaseClient. First of all you have to create a
+ SybaseConnection, and then, from it, use it as any other
+ IDbConnection-based class.
+
<a name="java">
** Mono and Java
After this is completed, we will begin developing
the JavaScript compiler.
+Q: Can Mono or .NET share system classes (loaded from mscore.dll and other
+ libs) or will it behave like Sun's Java VM?
+
+A: What you can do with mono is to load different applications in their own
+ application domain: this is a feature of the CLR that allows sandboxing
+ applications inside a single process space. This is usualy exploited to
+ compartmentalize different parts of the same app, but it can also be
+ effectively used to reduce the startup and memory overhead.
+ Using different appdomains the runtime representation of types and
+ methods is shared across applications.
+
<a name="extending"></a>
** Extending Mono
but as a general rule, we will accept the code under the same
terms of the "container" module.
-Q: Is the Mono
-
-
<a name="patents"></a>
** Patents
open source software community with good development tools, which
is the primary reason for developing Mono.
+ There is also a statement from Jim Miller at Microsoft, one of the
+ inventors listed in the patent: <a href="https://mailserver.di.unipi.it/pipermail/dotnet-sscli/msg00218.html">here</a>.
+
+ For Linux desktop use, we only need the ECMA components, and things that
+ we have developed (like Gtk#).
+
<a name="etc"></a>
** Miscellaneous Questions
Linux when disconnected from the Web (and that has better
interactions than a web page).
+Q: Is there a command-line tool that allows me to access .NET interactively?
+
+A: There are several but one that is free software and uses MCS is the one
+ Dennis Lu from Rice University is working on; a REPL C# interpreter.
+
+Q: Is it possible to use Visual C++ with Mono?.
+
+A: Well, It's possible to run VC++ generated apps under Mono though.
+
<a name="problems"></a>
** Mono Common Problems
projects / mono.git / blobdiff