Dave Bost

Losing interest in Mono experiment

It's pretty hard to get Mono installed if you can't even get Linux up and running.  On account of Mono 1.0 not including a package for the Mandrake distro, I made the decision to install Red Hat's Fedora Core 2 (more).  After a few hours of waiting for the system to install I was finally ready to login and apply the recommended patch for running in Virtual PC.  When I booted up the Fedora OS and entered my 'root' login, I was inundated with 'Segment Fault' error messages.  That's okay, I thought, because the step-by-step instructions to apply the patch said you could ignore these.  Just try and execute the command again and they should go away.  (Well, isn't that special) 

The gist of the instructions is to copy a ZIP file from another partition that contains the patched kernel.  To do this, you need to have Samba running in order to connect to a Windows share.  Step (37) of the patch instructions states to run the following command: 'ifup eth0 boot'.  When executing this command, I once again ran into my little friend the 'Segment Fault' error.  The problem this time around was that it wasn't going away.  After 20+ attempts I was pretty convinced that this command wasn't going to execute at all. I don't even pretend to know what the 'ifup' command does but I'm guessing it has something to do with initializing my network card.  This would seem to pose a problem in executing step (38), the samba client.

I found another suggestion that says if you have problems with your network card to burn the patch file to a CD.  Fine.  I did that, but now the system won't let me mount my Cd-ROM.  So much for that idea.  I've basically given up on this exercise because I feel like I've wasted way too much time trying to get Fedora Core 2 installed.

My last and final step to this experiment gone awry is to take the advice of Andres Bastidas who was kind enough to post a comment on my earlier post on how to get Mandrake to play nice with the Fedora Mono 1.0 package.  I'm a bit skeptical but I'll give it one last shot.  Something tells me I'll be heading back to my Whidbey work sooner than later.  I should have never ventured away in the first place.

 

Posted: Aug 03 2004, 11:36 PM by DaveBost | with 12 comment(s)

Comments

Jesse Ezell said:

Just install mono on a windows VPC, it runs the same whether you are using windows or linux.
# August 4, 2004 1:04 AM

Matt said:

He was talking about using yum on Fedora Core.
Don't hold your breath waiting for it to work in Mandrake!
# August 4, 2004 1:47 AM

james w said:

looks like Fedora Core 2 really doesn't like running inside of VPC. a Segmentation Fault isn't exactly the type of error i'd deem "ignorable" :)
# August 4, 2004 2:44 AM

Steve Hall said:

Boy.......doesn't this just make you want a good ol' ancient copy of SCO Desktop or UnixWare that would just install and work (IJW)?!?! Unfortunately, the price of the old versions of (ultra-stable) Unix derivatives was always the choke-point......and gave rise to Lunix (er, Linux).

The first couple of versions of Linux were easy to install, but as of late are getting quite complicated, esp. if you have to suffer patching the kernel or KDE or GNOME... (Some Linux install procedures rival those of installing that infamous mainframe OS...MVS...15-20 years ago!)

In general, most Linux installers and patchers (for both the OS and applications) rather suck compared to WIS-enabled setup packages for Windows software. (To see the Longhorn or Whidbey installers do their thing almost completely turnkey is a rather good benchmark for IE, "Install Experience".)

This reminds me of LensCrafter's quality motto:

"The thrill of a bargain is quickly diminished by the discovery of quality that is LACKING!"

As Linux distros get bigger and bigger, the "Install Experience" had better keep up with the sheer size of the shitpile... Else, it'll NEVER become a viable alternative for most home users.

Even though IBM spent 10-15 years getting MVS easy to install and patch, I'm hoping that Linux hackers would learn from that episode of computing history. Unfortunately, they're making all the SAME DAMN mistakes because MOST Linux hackers do NOT learn from our own history! ("EEEeeewww!!! It's MVS!" and "Oh, the horror, the HORROR!", as Dr. Smith would say...)

Personally, I'd try Mono on top of FreeBSD under VPC. Granted, FreeBSD might not be percieved as "fancy" or "cool" as a Linux distro, but it DOES install rather turnkey.

# August 4, 2004 2:47 AM

S Dot One said:

When I first read this post, I already was expecting some Linux bashing. Steve Hall must have never heard of Debian, that's one of the most stable distro's around. When it comes to turnkey installers, I guess you can't do a lot better than an Installer GUI based on apt.
But the whole point is not that you HAVE to choose Linux or Mono, but you CAN choose for an alternative. If it doesn't fit you, then don't choose it.
I think Mono is a good thing, just to keep MS doing new stuff. I hope Mono will be stable enough to be used in the enterprise world, and you'll have a choice on what platform to run .NET apps.
# August 4, 2004 3:05 AM

Steve Hall said:

Contrare: I HAVE installed and used Debian distros...and had similar problems running under VPC that Dave is having. Like Dave, I never did get Mono installed, since I concluded I was wasting way too much time trying to apply the outstanding security patches (and bypassing bogus segment faults). Switching to FreeBSD was my solution (and behaves under VPC better than Debian or Red Hat...)

BTW, the Debian and FreeBSD installers are pretty much the same: a little on the complex side, but tolerable (since I'm a developer). Pity the normal end-users that have to read 200 pages of docs before installing either...
# August 4, 2004 3:39 AM

Doug said:

I don't really understand how you can blame Linux for VPC's failures? Seems that's where the problem lies. I'm sure if you installed Fedora 2 fresh on the system without VPC it would work fine.
# August 4, 2004 9:59 AM

Vasu said:

I just started to use Suse Personal 9.1 in VPC to experiment with Mono on Linux. It runs fine in VPC, is free. Here is the link:
http://www.suse.com/us/private/download/ftp/personal_iso_int.html

I havent been successful with Mono yet as I a linux newbie too. I tried to install RedCarpet but failed with some dependencies. I am going to try the rpms directly today.
Maybe we could use each other's help :-)
# August 4, 2004 10:07 AM

Dave Bost said:

Doug -

I would agree that installing Fedora on Virtual PC is not the norm, but the fact is I don't have any problems with other operating system. That includes the Mandrake distro and Longhorn. As a matter of fact, Mandrake installed without a hitch. I'm just limited by the lack of Mandrake support from the Mono project.

I've always viewed Red Hat as being the leader in Linux distros. They've been around a while and I guess I was under the false impression that they could run seemlessly in common deployment scenarios, including VPC.

Unfortunately, I'm not willing to go the dual-boot route on account I wanted to test a SOA implementation between two different OSes, from the same machine. I know that's a lot to ask, but I'm limited by lack of resources (ie. additional boxes).

I'm know it's possible to get Linux up and running but it's coming down to the point of wasting too much time and not having the confidence that I'm going to get that "bang for the buck" for the time it's taking. To me, Linux has a ways to go before mass consumption.
# August 4, 2004 11:51 AM

Doug said:

I'd just like to reiterate that Linux is not your problem, VPC is. You should be placing your blame there. It's obvious that you have a built-in bias and find it hard to reconcile the fact that Linux doesn't do more to work in VPC. I find it doubtful that Microsoft ensures that every change they make works in WINE.
# August 4, 2004 11:59 AM

Eric Newton said:

I don't mean this as Linux bashing, but dang its hard to get that little sucker started up!

I wanted to try to run Mono in Linux because I wanna see if Mono/Windows gives Registry access [or even has Registry retrieval code implemented] and if Mono/Linux errors out or throws PlatformNotSupportedException.

Plus, I was thinkin' man it would be cool... I could finally feel like a real geek instead of just actin' like one.

Long story short, Linux is not installed, and I've given up on trying to get it working. Once these Linux installations get all the R&D done to even boot up properly on all machines, then maybe I can try again, but sheesh...

Oh, and since I couldn't get it installed, does this mean i'm not a *real* geek?
# August 5, 2004 7:02 PM

David Bakody said:

You might consider trying this to install Mono on Mandrake 10...

Get to the console and add some "cooker" sources for urpmi. These are the Cooker sources I like to use:

urpmi.addmedia cooker-contrib ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/mandrakelinux/devel/cooker/i586/media/contrib with media_info/hdlist.cz

urpmi.addmedia cooker-main ftp://mirror.aca.oakland.edu/linux/mandrakelinux/devel/cooker/i586/media/main with media_info/hdlist.cz

urpmi.addmedia cooker-plf ftp://plf.time4t.net/pub/plf/mandrake/cooker with hdlist.cz

After you've added the above, type...

urpmi mono

And mono 1.0 will be downloaded and installed on your system.

If you have any questions, you can email me at david with the domain bakody dot net

Cheers.
# August 9, 2004 5:34 PM
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