Mono project

[crashingdutchman]

Will mono-project work on the Raspberry Pi?

[Svartalf]

If it will compile on ARM and run in a 128-256Mb memory footprint as provided by the devices- yes.

[emercer]

http://www.mono-project.com/Mono:ARM

Mono does, indeed, run on several ARM devices, including Nokia tablets, Android handsets and the iHellhound of Cupertino.

[crashingdutchman]

Thanks for the replies.

So, now the questions is: Will Mono work on this specific ARM processor (used in Raspberry Pi)?

I understand that Ubuntu doesn't support the Rpi ARM processor (anymore), so that is why I ask.

[jamesh]

It will need to be tried. I'll put it on my list.

[crashingdutchman]

That is great, thank you.

I don't necessarily need to have Mono on the Raspberry Pi, but if I can compile a project on my Windows PC or a Linux box and target it to an ARM compatible program that works on Raspberry Pi, then I am happy camper.

[eggn1n3]

@crashingdutchman: I understand that Ubuntu doesn't support the Rpi ARM processor (anymore), so that is why I ask. Debian still supports ARM.

[crashingdutchman]

Thanks, but I think you are missing my point. What I wanted to say was that since (the current) Ubuntu doesn't support the ARM processor used by the Rpi, it could be that Momo doesn't support this processor either.

But, I am not sure if that would be an issue. Anyway, it is on the 'to test' list from jamesh.

[eggn1n3]

Well, if I understand you correctly, you want Mono for ARM and you think it's only provided by Ubuntu?
Checking Debian, there is a Mono version for ARM:
http://packages.debian.org/len.....e/download
http://packages.debian.org/squ.....e/download
I believe that this Debian version is supported by R-Pi. If not, you might want to compile it yourself.

[crashingdutchman]

No, you don't understand me correctly, but that is probably because I don't describe very well what I want. Sorry, English is not my mother tongue and I have very little knowledge of Linux things...

I will try one more time. What I want to know if Mono can work on the RPi (jamesh is going to test that, some time, so I guess that will answer my question).

when jamesh has done the test, the following is less important: Ubuntu has said that they are not going to support the ARM used by the Raspberry Pi, so now I am wondering if Mono has to support this specific ARM processor too (not only the OS, Debian in this case) to be able to run on Debian.

[jamesh]

OK, think I understand. You are worried that because Ubuntu no longer support Armv6 builds, that the Mono project may be making the same decisions.

The Mono project and Ubuntu are different projects, so decisions made by Ubuntu are not necessarily reflected by Mono.

As eggn1n3 said, it appears that there is a version of Mono precompiled for Armv6 in the Debian repositories, so I will try that out. I won't have time to try and rebuild the mono project if it is not in the repos.

[crashingdutchman]

You understood correctly and thank you for your reply and efforts to test this. It won't be a deal breaker for me if it doesn't work, but if I know it works, I have some time to prepare until Raspberry Pi comes out.

[jamesh]

OK, tried to install Mono from the Debian repo, but there is no install candidate. I don't have the time to see if it can be rebuilt for Arm I am afraid.

Error is that there is a package called mono referred from another package, but there is no install candidate.

[crashingdutchman]

Thank you for taking the time to try this. It's much appreciated. Maybe someone else can try this when RPi comes available. Like I said, I am a Linux noob, so it will take some time for me to try this out.

Since the RPi is mainly designed for educational purposes and learn kids to program, this would have been nice.

Thanks again james

[pieter]

I just tried to install mono on my Guruplug (also arm) which is running debian Sid:

apt-get install mono-runtime
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
binfmt-support cli-common libmono-corlib2.0-cil libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-system2.0-cil mono-2.0-gac mono-gac
Suggested packages:
libmono-i18n2.0-cil libgamin0 libgdiplus libmono-winforms2.0-cil
The following NEW packages will be installed:
binfmt-support cli-common libmono-corlib2.0-cil libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-system2.0-cil mono-2.0-gac mono-gac
mono-runtime

It looks like mono wil be available on the r-pi.

Also from the debian site (http://packages.debian.org/sid.....no-runtime):
Mono currently only supports the X86, PowerPC, ARM, SPARC, S/390, AMD64 and IA64 architectures.

Disclaimer: I'm not very knowledgeable about mono/c#

[tufty]

Since the RPi is mainly designed for educational purposes and learn kids to program, this would have been nice.
That should be "and teaching kids to program".

As for the "would have been nice" bit, (and, obviously, IMNSHO) Mono is a not-terribly good implementation of one of the few decent things that MS has done recently. The VM underlying C# / .net is actually pretty good, and enables stuff like F# (in the same way that you can implement other programming languages for the JVM as well) as well as being used in some really interesting stuff in cutting edge PL research. However, in "real world" terms, programming on the Mono / .net VMs is almost exclusively done in C# or VB.net; neither of these are much cop as teaching languages, and both of them tend to "tie the student in" to MS technologies. Little better than teaching kids to use Flash and Dreamweaver, IMO.

[crashingdutchman]

That should be "and teaching kids to program".


Thank you, learned something new today. English is not my mother tongue, when (or is it if) you are going to learn Dutch, let me know and I will teach you.

[tufty]

Quote from crashingdutchman on September 26, 2011, 21:14
English is not my mother tongue, when (or is it if) you are going to learn Dutch, let me know and I will teach you.
Ah, sorry about that. I should have guessed from your name, really. Learning Dutch could be an interesting exercise, but I'm currently working on Italian (Italy's just over the border) and once I have that cracked I might have a shot at Russian (lots of "new money" Russian tourists around here).

Anyway, sorry for being condescending. I should be more careful.

Simon

[pepedog]

I am running http://archlinuxarm.com on my rpi
Mono works, compiled and run helloworld basic example

[crashingdutchman]

Cool, that is great news!

Thanks for posting this.

[Beakster]

However, in "real world" terms, programming on the Mono / .net VMs is almost exclusively done in C# or VB.net; neither of these are much cop as teaching languages, and both of them tend to "tie the student in" to MS technologies. Little better than teaching kids to use Flash and Dreamweaver, IMO.

I'd agree with the above. If you want to teach a popular OO language Java would be a better option for using on the Pi. A lot of what I do in C# uses the Microsoft APIs which are not available in Mono and are closely tied to a Windows environment.

I learned to program in Java on a Pentium3 450MHz with 128MB (a lower spec than the Pi). Java was the language I used for most of my projects in my Computing Science degree, and the language used by the first professional software development job I got after university. When I later decided to jump ship and become a professional developer on the Microsoft platform, learning C#/.net was very easy as all the principles and much of the syntax from Java were the same. So for teaching I think Java offers far more advantages than .net.

Also, as I understand it the ARM processor is able to work with Java byte code directly which should mean it is potentially much faster to run Java code than .net/mono code on a Pi.

[obarthelemy]

Also, as I understand it the ARM processor is able to work with Java byte code directly which should mean it is potentially much faster to run Java code than .net/mono code on a Pi.

There's an "in theory" missing in there. In practice, that requires licensing Java from Oracle (if I understood well), and that's not on the books for the moment, the Pi people aren't even trying since Oracle's attitude will most certainly be... commercial :-p

[Jim Manley]

Oracle isn't as much of an ogre as Larry Ellison is - there are other people there who get to make decisions that are in the best interests of everyone, e.g., MySQL is and always will be free, and even Oracle 11g is free for databases smaller than 1 GB (granted, probably only useful for hobbyists and smaller businesses, but, that's what the R-Pi is all about).  Now that the potential market for R-Pi boards appears to be in the vicinity of something like 400,000 units and climbing, I'd bet that Oracle would be willing to get Java into schools at no charge, especially if people would be volunteering or being paid (for professional teachers) to educate students in Java.

As Apple has shown so successfully when they targeted educational institutions with Apple ][ and Mac systems at hefty discounts, what people learn to use in school can make a customer of them for life.  I happen to know the brother of an Oracle VP for licensing, so, if we need a friend on the inside, we may have at least one, probably many more from their education and government markets (the latter is HUGE).

[danielclegg]

I think you underestimate C# as modern language, its up to version 4.0 with 5.0 due in a few months time, but since version 2.0 the language has become very advanced. It now has generics, lambda functions, dynamic functions, LINQ, out of the box parallel programming, yield and due in 5.0 OTB async methods and compiler API's, allowing code access to the compiler itself. Not too shabby IMHO. Mono is currently upto version 4.0.

@Beakster Just interested what do you develop that needs Windows API calls, personally I've found as .Net matured that I've had to use less and less Windows API's till present I haven't had to use any in that last 3-4 years.

[jools]

I don't know about VB .Net because I don't use it, but I think that C#'s introduction of generics, anonymous functions and lambdas have made it very elegant indeed. I don't agree that it is reliant on Microsoft API calls -that was true of the old VB and C++ Visual Studio, but not now.