Mono integration

[Vincent Povirk]

I wrote a wiki page yesterday about the current state of Mono
integration in Wine and what I think needs to be done about it. That
is at: http://wiki.winehq.org/Mono

Basically, if you install Mono in Wine, Wine will use it to run .NET
programs. However, the combination doesn't work for any of the
programs I've tried. There are a number of things wrong (listed on the
wiki page), but none of them appear to affect a lot of programs.

My theory is that it just happens to not work very well because of
random bugs. I think it's important that we improve this, so that we
have an alternative to MS .NET. I am amazed that the licensing allows
us to use MS .NET now (if indeed it really does), and I don't know how
long that will continue.

So here is what I'd like to ask from the community:

* Try some .NET programs with Mono (use the mono26 verb in
winetricks), and file Wine bugs when they don't work. Even if the bug
is in Mono, we should investigate it and give them a nice report,
since we are using Mono in a strange way. Use the dotnet keyword.

* If an installer for something other than .NET tries to install .NET,
file a bug for that with the dotnet keyword.

* Someone other than me, please try to make a Windows build of Mono
and run the Mono test suite under Wine. I want to make sure that the
instructions make sense and that someone other than me can do this.

[Austin English]

On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 11:14 AM, Vincent Povirk
 wrote:
> I wrote a wiki page yesterday about the current state of Mono
> integration in Wine and what I think needs to be done about it. That
> is at: http://wiki.winehq.org/Mono
>
> Basically, if you install Mono in Wine, Wine will use it to run .NET
> programs. However, the combination doesn't work for any of the
> programs I've tried. There are a number of things wrong (listed on the
> wiki page), but none of them appear to affect a lot of programs.
>
> My theory is that it just happens to not work very well because of
> random bugs. I think it's important that we improve this, so that we
> have an alternative to MS .NET. I am amazed that the licensing allows
> us to use MS .NET now (if indeed it really does), and I don't know how
> long that will continue.
>
> So here is what I'd like to ask from the community:
> - Try some .NET programs with Mono (use the mono26 verb in
>
> winetricks), and file Wine bugs when they don't work. Even if the bug
> is in Mono, we should investigate it and give them a nice report,
> since we are using Mono in a strange way. Use the dotnet keyword.
> - If an installer for something other than .NET tries to install .NET,
>
> file a bug for that with the dotnet keyword.

For any .Net version (1.1, 2.0, 3.5)? Does that also count for service
packs? I take it your recent work on mscoree should fake a dotnet
installation?
> - Someone other than me, please try to make a Windows build of Mono
>
> and run the Mono test suite under Wine. I want to make sure that the
> instructions make sense and that someone other than me can do this.

I'll try to do that this in the next few days/weekend.

[Vincent Povirk]

> > - If an installer for something other than .NET tries to install .NET,
> >
> > file a bug for that with the dotnet keyword.
>
> For any .Net version (1.1, 2.0, 3.5)? Does that also count for service
> packs? I take it your recent work on mscoree should fake a dotnet
> installation?

Any .NET version. Mono 2.6 supports all of those (see
http://www.mono-project.com/Compatibility).

My work on mscoree so far has done basically nothing. There is a
Dotnet section in wine.inf that installs some registry keys that
satisfy some installers.
> > - Someone other than me, please try to make a Windows build of Mono
> >
> > and run the Mono test suite under Wine. I want to make sure that the
> > instructions make sense and that someone other than me can do this.
>
> I'll try to do that this in the next few days/weekend.

Thanks.

[Sir Gallantmon (ニール・ゴンパ)]

On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 11:27 AM, Vincent Povirk
<[e-mail]
> wrote:
> > > - If an installer for something other than .NET tries to install .NET,
> > >
> > > file a bug for that with the dotnet keyword.
> >
> > For any .Net version (1.1, 2.0, 3.5)? Does that also count for service
> > packs? I take it your recent work on mscoree should fake a dotnet
> > installation?
>
> Any .NET version. Mono 2.6 supports all of those (see
> http://www.mono-project.com/Compatibility).
>
> My work on mscoree so far has done basically nothing. There is a
> Dotnet section in wine.inf that installs some registry keys that
> satisfy some installers.
> > > - Someone other than me, please try to make a Windows build of Mono
> > >
> > > and run the Mono test suite under Wine. I want to make sure that the
> > > instructions make sense and that someone other than me can do this.
> >
> > I'll try to do that this in the next few days/weekend.
>
> Thanks.

The compatibility information basically indicates that Mono can substitute
for .NET below version 3.0. 3.0 and higher still needs Microsoft's
implementation.

How would you handle hybridizing Mono with Microsoft's framework?

[Vincent Povirk]

> The compatibility information basically indicates that Mono can substitute
> for .NET below version 3.0. 3.0 and higher still needs Microsoft's
> implementation.
> How would you handle hybridizing Mono with Microsoft's framework?

You would need different wine prefixes if you want to use both at once.

What is the problem with 3.0, and can't it be fixed?

[Louis Lenders]

> > The compatibility information basically indicates that Mono can substitute
> > for .NET below version 3.0. 3.0 and higher still needs Microsoft's
> > implementation.
> > How would you handle hybridizing Mono with Microsoft's framework?
>
> You would need different wine prefixes if you want to use both at once.
>
> What is the problem with 3.0, and can't it be fixed?

AFAIK mono doesn't implement WPF,  so any .NET app that uses it is likely to
fail in mono. Correct me if i'm wrong

Vincent Povirk <madewokherd+8cd9 <at> gmail.com> writes:

[Vincent Povirk]

> AFAIK mono doesn't implement WPF,  so any .NET app that uses it is likely to
> fail in mono. Correct me if i'm wrong

This is true, and according to
http://www.mono-project.com/Compatibility they have no plans to
implement it. But someone could, and even if the mono project doesn't
want it, it would be useful for Wine.

[Scott Ritchie]

On 04/01/2010 10:18 AM, Vincent Povirk wrote:
> > AFAIK mono doesn't implement WPF,  so any .NET app that uses it is likely to
> > fail in mono. Correct me if i'm wrong
>
> This is true, and according to
> http://www.mono-project.com/Compatibility they have no plans to
> implement it. But someone could, and even if the mono project doesn't
> want it, it would be useful for Wine.

For what it's worth when I've approached Novel people they've been quite 
open to the idea of greater cooperation with the Wine project.  I think 
we can benefit greatly if we made it very clear what Wine wants from 
Mono, and especially what paid Novell people won't be doing (and thus 
needs to be done by the community).

Thank you for starting that wiki page, it's a great step in that direction.

Thanks,
Scott  Ritchie

[Sir Gallantmon (ニール・ゴンパ)]

On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 6:50 PM, Scott Ritchie  wrote:
> On 04/01/2010 10:18 AM, Vincent Povirk wrote:
> > AFAIK mono doesn't implement WPF,  so any .NET app that uses it is likely
> > > to
> > > fail in mono. Correct me if i'm wrong
> >
> > This is true, and according to
> > http://www.mono-project.com/Compatibility they have no plans to
> > implement it. But someone could, and even if the mono project doesn't
> > want it, it would be useful for Wine.
>
> For what it's worth when I've approached Novel people they've been quite
> open to the idea of greater cooperation with the Wine project.  I think we
> can benefit greatly if we made it very clear what Wine wants from Mono, and
> especially what paid Novell people won't be doing (and thus needs to be done
> by the community).
>
> Thank you for starting that wiki page, it's a great step in that direction.
>
> Thanks,
> Scott  Ritchie

According to the Mono page here (
http://www.mono-project.com/Mono_Project_Roadmap#Unsupported_technologies ),
the Mono project isn't adverse to having work done to implement WPF, WCF,
and WF, but they currently don't have an inclination to do so.

The question is, are there people in the Wine community skilled in .NET to
bring these technologies to Wine through Mono?