Revision as of 01:32, 22 January 2008

What is monodevelop?

Most of us already know that it is more convenient to view/edit the OpenSim source in Visual Studio 2005 C# Express on Windows. However, for those of us who don't have access to Windows, monodevelop is the most suitable equivalent and remains one of the best candidate for .NET programming on Linux systems. If you are planning to work with the source on any Linux system, monodevelop and kdevelop are both capable of viewing/editing C# solutions/projects. However, support for monodevelop is somewhat limited and it does not have the same features as VS2005 C# Express. If you have an available Windows system - use Visual Studio.

• Lastest Release: monodevelop 1.0 Beta 2
• Official Site: http://www.monodevelop.com/Main_Page

Installation

From Package

For Debian-based Linux distributions, you can install the monodevelop package via the following command in terminal:

sudo aptitude install monodevelop

Please be aware that monodevelop has a slew of dependencies! Also, if you are interested in additional programming plugins, you might find them in your distribution's repository. If they are not there, you can also add them in the monodevelop GUI under the Add-in Manager in Tools.

From Source

Depending on your distribution of Linux, you may need to install monodevelop from source. However, it is important that you check the main site for packages. Both the available packages and sources can be found at http://www.monodevelop.com/Download (the official download site). In order to install monodevelop from source, download the appropriate file and extract the contents to a folder of your choosing. After you have extracted the files, execute the following command:

./configure && make && make install

There are numerous problems that may occur during this process (as with any build), according to public forums. We will work to keep an updated archive of fixes as they are discovered. Anyone who is familiar with these issues may also amend this document openly.

In a Virtual Machine

Another option, if you don't have a Mono environment set up, is to download the pre-configured VMware virtual machine from http://www.mono-project.com/VMware_Image . It runs OpenSuSE, and is maintained by Novell (owners of SuSE). It includes monodevelop, so you can try it out without fiddling with your current environment. If you do not have VMware installed, you can download a free "VMWare Player" -- for Windows and Linux (32- and 64-bit) -- from http://vmware.com/products/player/.

Running monodevelop

Running monodevelop is simple. Open your terminal and run monodevelop. However, you should keep in mind that, if your OpenSim directory is owned by root because you installed it with the sudo command, you might want to run monodevelop as root. This will allow you to save your files without any annoying write-errors.

It is worth remembering that running OpenSim as root is a really, really, really, really bad idea and you should just chown it to your user account instead of following the above caveat.

Creating a workspace

To create a projectfile, you must run the prebuild.sh/.bat, and nant. This creates opensim.sln, which you can import into monoDevelop.

Known Issues

Error: I can't open the solution?

One common error you might encounter when attempting to open the OpenSim source is:

... can not be saved, because the source file can not be read.

Answer: Native support for Visual Studio 2005 solutions/projects is required to view/edit the OpenSim source. You will need to obtain version 0.13 or higher. Please be sure to check your repository for the latest release. In some cases, the provided version may be too old. For Ubuntu users, the feisty repository contains version 0.12 of monodevelop. You will need to install a newer version from source or find another repository to update the package.

Ubuntu Users: Update to Version 0.13

The following repository contains Ubuntu updates for mono and monodevelop:

deb http://www.viraptor.info/repo fiesty-custombackports contrib

You can add this source under the Third-Party Software tab in your Software Source manager under System>Administration. After it has been added, you can run your Synaptic Package Manager to update your files manually if you desire. You may be prompted to update through the auto-updater. You can also manually add this repository in your terminal by adding the address to the bottom of /etc/apt/sources.list and executing the following command:

sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude upgrade

The Future of monodevelop

Given some time, monodevelop could prove useful in the future development of OpenSim. However, more research must be done on the program itself to determine this. This is the primary reason that I created this entry and I'm hoping for more contributions. Some of us are working to integrate more features into monodevelop, but for now, VS2005 is the optimal choice.

• I hope this documents helps. Please feel free to update/modify this entry as needed.