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A Bare-Bones Linux+Mono+GUI Distro?
nimble99 writes "I am a computer software engineer, focused mainly on the Windows platform — but most of my development time is spent in .NET. I would like to move my .NET development to Linux in the form of Mono, in an attempt at building a media-center type of device. All I require, is a base operating system with simple hardware support, Mono, and a window manager that (preferably) does nothing but act as a host for mono applications. Is this available? I dont know a lot about Linux, so I thought I would ask if there is already something like this available. Obviously a 'Mono Operating System' would be the cleanest solution, but a similar thing could be achieved with the barest minimum of Linux distros right?"
You could build a Gentoo install to satisfy this. With Gentoo you build the system to fit what you want out of it.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
Monoppix perhaps?
I haven't tried it yet but the description sounds about right.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
Did he ask you your opinion on the .net Framework/Stack? I am pretty much against Microsoft as much as anyone, but given the fact that their .net is pretty-much-fkinly-successful, maybe Mono can get some .net programmers to cross the bridge.
.net. Therefore, it is NOT a microsoft product. It's more akin to Wine than Windows.
Also, Mono TECHNICALLY isn't a Windows infrastructure. It's heavily based on a Microsoft-created execution and "vm" stack (vm not so much, but i disgress), but it's a reimplementation of
This is my opinion. Everyone has a right to my opinion.
Ubuntu Server edition installs as just a command line without all the fluff. From there you could add Mono and any GUI of your choice.
Bearded Dragon
Just install a basic net installation of Debian. You'll get nothing but a console. Apt-get the GUI of your choice. Apt-get Mono. You're done.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Use Qt4 and forget about MONO and .NET. You won't regret it.
Death is life's great reward. R. Hoek
DSL is also a good choice for a set-top box - only 50MB of disk space required, and it is based on Debian so pretty much any application you want/need is already packaged and available in the repository.
That said, if you are going to be doing Mono development you will want a full desktop environment - for that any distro will work fine. I'd go with a full Debian install on your development machine so you have the same library versions/builds on both systems.
For the final media center PC, you don't actually need a window manager - you can run X11 applications without a WM, and if all you are doing is running a single fullscreen app that is often preferable. I used to do that when running quake on memory starved systems. Do a search for the xinitrc file to learn how to set that up.
After reading the interviews on artima.com with Anders it's pretty clear that he's mostly a blowhard -- like Beck, all style and no substance. Take this for example:
Bill Venners:
Anders Hejlsberg: They can never inline a virtual method invocation.
Bill Venners: My understanding is that these JVM's first check if the type of the object on which a virtual method call is about to be made is the same as the one or two they expect, and if so, they can just plow on ahead through the inlined code.
Anders Hejlsberg: Oh, yes. You can optimize for the case you saw last time and check whether it is the same as the last one, and then you just jump straight there.
Not only is Anders being handed his hat by the interviewer, but he doesn't even realize that for almost ten years all Java methods have been effectively final until overridden, doing exactly that which he says is impossible. There is no 'same as last time' check since it is compiled as if there was one function. There is no 'jump straight there' when the method is inlined, and no performance lost from virtual methods that are not overridden. In contrast,
None these guys on the core C# team were anywhere close to the same level as say Joy or Bracha, and it shows. Yeah, if you're coming from Win32 and MFC then C#/.net seems pretty awesome, but it's not. They made a lot of really bad design decisions that make it really suck compared to what it could be and what they ripped it off from. So it kind of depresses me a little bit when people gush quixotic about how great
It's not for the feint of heart, but you might look at using LFS to build such a minimal system. I don't really see the harm in using a "full" Linux machine for the development environment, and then using LFS to build the embedded image that you deploy to "real" devices. We do this where I work.
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
It'll get the job done. If your totally new to Linux, it might be a bit much, but the folks on the lists are quite helpful.
Kirby
Wow, you took a miscommunication about a very complex technical feature and turned it into "getting his hat handed to him"?
Furthermore, Anders is actually correcting the interviewer because the JVM isn't "inlining virtual method invocations", it's optimizing them.
For inlining a function to mean anything, it cannot be virtual. An inlined function is in essence a macro.
And Anders is more accurate than Bill. What Bill says translates to: you can turn a virtual function into an inline function with a if ( this_class__is_not_X_or_Y ) jump_to_virtual_function_table type structure. What Andres says translates to: Sure, in that case. But it's an optimization.
I see that you get the best of both worlds in that situation, but Andres is right in his unequivical "You cannot inline a virtual function." Because you cannot. You can inline exactly one version of a virtual function with an if at the top, or more if you use a bunch of ifs/a switch. But the latter removes the benefits of inlining. So, a clever compiler can have a sometimes inlined response.
And the begining of your critique is just as poor. He said that it was impossible to inline a virtual function. Stating that most functions are not virtual attacks the fact, not the logic. He said "this [disproved emperical condition] results in poor performance because of [insert logical rule] makes it impossible." Disproving the emperical condition does not disprove the logical rule.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Not really. It's really not that hard to understand:
I think Novell and Miguel are hurting the Mono project by conflating Mono and
Banshee, one of the really popular audio players, is based on Mono. When Banshee-1 comes out, a lot of people will be using it. Trust me.
... ahem ... Ubuntu 8.04 is a Mono app.
F-Spot, the default photo app for
Beagle is Mono.
Tomboy Notes is Mono.
The way I see it, most of the brand new, quickly developing application software is based on Mono.quickly
Put identity in the browser.
I develop in Mono. I have chosen OpenSUSE over other distibutions because it's Novell behind and I thought that Novell would be the best company to packaged correctly MonoDevelop, Mono and everything else.
The OpenSUSE installation lets you remove unwanted apps. But well I have never removed anything...Quite the contrary, You always needs specific tools.
Oh...And well you are going to develop pro applications right? So I wouldn't advice to take the last little distribution...Somes are maintained by one person mostly...If this person gets sick or is fed up by the maintenance...You are in trouble. For pro the best thing is to wait until the distribution becomes mainstream (Ubuntu, Gentoo, etc.)