Installing an Alternate MonoDevelop

I needed a newer version of Monodevelop, and I couldn’t find  a repository that would allow me to just update it with apt-get.  Rather than change all the libraries that other programs might be using, I thought these instructions might provide a safe solution anyway.  So, I embarked on installed a standalone version self-contained in this directory:

/home/skp/app/blog

The first step settings up your environment variables to separate your environment out.  Like the instructions, I created a mono-dev-env file: gedit mono-dev-env.  Here is my file:

#!/bin/bash
MONO_PREFIX=/home/skp/app/blog
GNOME_PREFIX=/home/skp/app/blog
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=$MONO_PREFIX/lib:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$MONO_PREFIX/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
export C_INCLUDE_PATH=$MONO_PREFIX/include:$GNOME_PREFIX/include
export ACLOCAL_PATH=$MONO_PREFIX/share/aclocal
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$MONO_PREFIX/lib/pkgconfig:$GNOME_PREFIX/lib/pkgconfig
PATH=$MONO_PREFIX/bin:$PATH
PS1="[mono] \w @ "

Then make sure that you source it in:

. ./mono-dev-env

I downloaded the various packages mostly from this page.  I setup a special directory called “downloads” for those file that I downloaded.

[mono] ~/app/blog @ mkdir downloads
[mono] ~/app/blog @ cd downloads

Next, I downloaded libgdiplus from the releases page.  I uncompressed it and installed it with these commands:

wget http://ftp.novell.com/pub/mono/sources/libgdiplus/libgdiplus-2.6.4.tar.bz2
tar -xjvf libgdiplus-2.6.4.tar.bz2
cd libgdiplus-2.6.4
./configure --prefix=$MONO_PREFIX
make
make install

Next, I installed mono from the releases page with these commands:

wget http://ftp.novell.com/pub/mono/sources/mono/mono-2.6.4.tar.bz2
tar -xjvf mono-2.6.4.tar.bz2
cd mono-2.6.4
./configure --prefix=$MONO_PREFIX
make
make install

Next, I installed gtk-sharp from the same releases page:

wget http://ftp.novell.com/pub/mono/sources/gtk-sharp212/gtk-sharp-2.12.10.tar.bz2
tar -xjvf gtk-sharp-2.12.10.tar.bz2
cd gtk-sharp-2.12.10
./configure --prefix=$MONO_PREFIX
make
make install

Next, I installed mono-tools from the same releases page:

wget http://ftp.novell.com/pub/mono/sources/mono-tools/mono-tools-2.6.2.tar.bz2
tar -xjvf mono-tools-2.6.2.tar.bz2
cd mono-tools-2.6.2
./configure --prefix=$MONO_PREFIX
make
make install

Next, I installed mono-addins from the same releases page:

wget http://ftp.novell.com/pub/mono/sources/mono-addins/mono-addins-0.4.zip
unzip mono-addins-0.4.zip
cd mono-addins-0.4
./configure --prefix=$MONO_PREFIX
make
make install

Next, I installed monodevelop from the same releases page:

wget http://ftp.novell.com/pub/mono/sources/monodevelop/monodevelop-2.2.2.tar.bz2
tar -xjvf monodevelop-2.2.2.tar.bz2
cd monodevelop-2.2.2
./configure --prefix=$MONO_PREFIX
make
make install

Next, I installed gnome-sharp from the same releases page:

wget http://ftp.novell.com/pub/mono/sources/gnome-sharp2/gnome-sharp-2.24.1.tar.bz2
tar -xjvf gnome-sharp-2.24.1.tar.bz2
cd gnome-sharp-2.24.1
./configure --prefix=$MONO_PREFIX
make
make install

Next, I installed gnome-desktop-sharp from the same releases page:

wget http://ftp.novell.com/pub/mono/sources/gnome-desktop-sharp2/gnome-desktop-sharp-2.24.0.tar.bz2
tar -xjvf  gnome-desktop-sharp-2.24.0.tar.bz2
cd gnome-desktop-sharp-2.24.0
./configure --prefix=$MONO_PREFIX
make
make install

Next, I installed gnome-keyring-sharp.  With the help of a link or two, I found I could download it here:

wget http://ftp.novell.com/pub/mono/sources/gnome-keyring-sharp/gnome-keyring-sharp-1.0.0.tar.bz2
tar -xjvf  gnome-keyring-sharp-1.0.0.tar.bz2
cd gnome-keyring-sharp-1.0.0
./configure --prefix=$MONO_PREFIX
make
make install

Next, I installed Mono.Cairo.  With the help of this page, I found I could download it here:

wget http://cairographics.org/releases/cairo-1.8.10.tar.gz
tar -xzvf cairo-1.8.10.tar.gz
cd cairo-1.8.10
./configure --prefix=$MONO_PREFIX
make
make install

Next, I installed DBusSharp.  I found I could download it here:

wget http://www.ndesk.org/archive/dbus-sharp/ndesk-dbus-0.6.0.tar.gz
tar -xzvf ndesk-dbus-0.6.0.tar.gz
cd ndesk-dbus-0.6.0
./configure --prefix=$MONO_PREFIX
make
make install

Now, for the time of reconing — start monodevelop:

monodevelop

So, here is the About dialog: