Mono
Sugar activities are usually written in Python using the Python Activity API. This page documents how it is possible to use Mono to write a Sugar activity. With Mono, you can use any underlying language like C# or Boo.
Contents
Overview
XO Bundle and Mono Bundle
To write an OLPC Mono activity, you need to prepare a .xo Bundle including all required libraries. This is necessary because the Mono runtime is not officially supported by the OS images.
If you use Mono, you know that the C# compiler does not traslate the source to machine code, but to an IL (Intermediate Language) that requires a runtime to be executed. Since you don't have the runtime installed on the XO, you need to create a Mono bundle so the runtime is packed with the executable.
To do this, you need to have the program already in binary format and use the mkbundle2 utility to create the stand-alone application.
mkbundle2 --config /etc/mono/config --deps --static -o MonkeysMemory.exe monkeysmemory.exe Sugar_0.0.1.dll NDesk.DBus.GLib.dll NDesk.DBus.dll
In this example "monkeysmemory.exe" is the original IL binary file, while "MonkeysMemory.exe" is the binary file that can be run without runtime installed.
Normally, using the --static flag has some licence restriction, but here it can be used without limitation.
In your bundle you need to put some glue shared libraries that are used by the Mono runtime like this:
- libgdksharpglue-2.so
- libgladesharpglue-2.so
- libglibsharpglue-2.so
- libgtksharpglue-2.so
- libMonoPosixHelper.so
- libpangosharpglue-2.so
- uiX11Util.so
All these files (except uiX11Util.so) are taken from mono environment. The last one (uiX11Util.so) is OLPC specific and allows to setup some X11 atoms needed by the Sugar interface. These files are placed in the bin directory of the activity.
How to run a Mono activity
You can find a sample activity written using Mono.
Interface with the native subsystem
Create new application
Sugarize existing application
More documentation will be released as soon as possible.
