How to remove Mono from Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx [Updated]

Monogenea

Monogenea

Monogeneans are ectoparasites, meaning they live on the surface of their host’s body (as opposed to inside of it) and feed mainly on mucus and other detritus. To ensure they do not lose grip of their host, Monogeneans have very highly developed attachment appendages such as suction devices, pincers, hooks or spines. Most species require only one host to complete their life cycle and they are mostly hermaphroditic. Monogeneans are a type of Platyhelminthe (flatworm) and as such have only one “opening” where food is ingested and any waste is expelled.
OK, that’s enough of a biology lesson. If you are reading this then you probably know why you are here already.

To remove Mono from your shiny new desktop installation of Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx enter the following command (after taking the usual precautions like backups of your data etc):

sudo apt-get purge libmono* libgdiplus cli-common libglitz-glx1 libglitz1

[UPDATE: Many thanks to Directhex who pointed out my error regarding the need to remove libsqlite0. I’ve removed it from the command above. He also requested (you can see in his comment below), that I mention that the mononono package is no longer particularly effective at preventing Mono from being installed. Thanks for the prompt Jo, I was going to but I just forgot.]

This is almost the same one as used for the Karmic Koala release (9.10), and for me the result of the above command was as follows:

The following packages will be REMOVED
cli-common* f-spot* gbrainy* libart2.0-cil* libflickrnet2.2-cil* libgconf2.0-cil* libgdiplus* libglade2.0-cil* libglib2.0-cil* libglitz-glx1* libglitz1* libgmime2.4-cil* libgnome-keyring1.0-cil* libgnome-vfs2.0-cil*
libgnome2.24-cil* libgnomepanel2.24-cil* libgtk2.0-cil* liblaunchpad-integration1.0-cil* libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil* libmono-addins0.2-cil* libmono-cairo2.0-cil* libmono-corlib2.0-cil* libmono-data-tds2.0-cil* libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil* libmono-posix2.0-cil* libmono-security2.0-cil* libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil* libmono-sqlite2.0-cil* libmono-system-data2.0-cil* libmono-system-runtime2.0-cil* libmono-system-web2.0-cil* libmono-system2.0-cil* libmono2.0-cil* libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil* libndesk-dbus1.0-cil* libnunit2.4-cil* mono-2.0-gac* mono-gac* mono-runtime* tomboy*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 40 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 49.8MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

I chose to accept this and proceeded. Of course YMMV so please check carefully before hitting that enter key. The purge switch of this command removes any configuration files as well as the packages themselves.

Compared to Ubuntu 9.10, in 10.04 there appears to be just one new Mono dependant application called gbrainy (in the Games menu) which is described thus: “a platform to train memory, arithmetical and logical capabilities with many sorts of different exercises of different difficulty levels”.

Unfortunately it appears as though the “training” objective of gbrainy might not be realised…

Over the last year or so, the BBC have carried out an experiment which examined “brain trainer” games. Subsequent analysis of the data found that these brain trainers are an empty promise as reported here in The Guardian:

Practising brain-training games will improve your performance on brain-training games, but that effect will not transfer to other aspects of brain function. They will not make you brainier, so you may as well just pootle around on the internet.

It seems that not much grey matter will be lost by removing the gbrainy package then 😉

Gnote and Getting Things Gnome

Gnote and Getting Things Gnome

The other applications expunged by removing Mono from the default Desktop installation are the same as last year: F-Spot and Tomboy.

For a very similar alternative to Tomboy try Gnote, and as I like task-related management too I also recommend the excellent GTG [Getting Things Gnome] application. To install these two simply type: sudo apt-get install gnote gtg.

The alternative for F-Spot I usually use is a combination of gthumb and Gimp, the latter of which has been removed from the default Lucid desktop install to make space for other things. Both of these applications can be easily installed by a simple sudo apt-get install gthumb gimp command. However there is now a new kid on the block which looks quite exciting called shotwell. Shotwell will be the default camera/image app in the forthcoming Fedora 13 distribution replacing gthumb (as it has no dependencies on Mono in the default desktop installation). It is also, I was pleased to discover, available in the main Lucid repository so can be installed using either the command line: sudo apt-get install shotwell or you can use the very easy and graphically attractive Ubuntu Software Centre (as you can for the other applications listed above also). This is how Fedora describe Shotwell in the preliminary release notes:

Shotwell is an open source photo organizer designed for the GNOME desktop environment and has replaced Gthumb by default in Fedora 13. It supports the following features:

  • import photos from any digital camera supported by gPhoto
  • automatically organize events containing photos taken at the same time
  • use tags to organize your photo collection
  • edit non-destructively when altering photos, without ruining originals or using disk space for each copy
  • publish photos to Facebook, Flickr or Picasa
  • one-click auto-enhancement
  • rotate, mirror, and crop photos
  • reduce red-eye and adjust the exposure, saturation, tint, and temperature of your photos
  • edit any photo, even if it’s not imported to the Shotwell library

I haven’t used Shotwell yet but it sounds like a good one to try out.

There you have it and hopefully that will be it for another 6 months on this subject.

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80 Comments

  • TaQ says:

    Thanks for sharing this! Here we go again. 🙂

  • Alex says:

    Thanks a lot. Will post a french article about it on my blog.

  • LinuxN00b says:

    I’m curious to know why you hate Mono. Resource hog or something? Idealogical reasons? Security issues? Perhaps you could have linked to an article on why you want rid.

    • Alan Lord says:

      @linuxN00b,

      read some of the older posts. It has all been said before and doesn’t need repeating every 6 months.

      • doubting thomas says:

        Wow, way to be not the least bit helpful.
        You need to curb your attitude, people are starting to notice.

        • Sum Yung Gai says:

          And you need to do the proper Googling before you go accusing others of bad attitudes.

          Go do your homework, then come back.

  • Tomasz Sonta says:

    From gbrainy documentation:

    “There have been recent discussions in the scientific community regarding whether brain training software improves cognitive performance. Most of the studies show that there is little or no improvement, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a good time playing games like gbrainy!”

  • Lea says:

    Thanks! I’ve never used Tomboy or f-spot (gThumbs is perfect for me).

    On a related note, are there any special procedures required for safely removing evolution and replacing with thunderbird? Can the calendar on the panel be set up to work with sunbird or another calendar?

  • […] distribution have been mostly positive so far. For those who wish to keep Mono out of it, there are new instructions […]

  • Johannes says:

    Thanks for this – I’ll make good use of it 🙂
    Lately I replaced Gthumb by Eye of Gnome + Nautilus, works fine

  • Scaine says:

    You should probably also note some of the other reasonably large projects that you’ll lose out on by doing this. The two that jump into my head are Banshee and Gnome-do.
    I refused previously to give up Mono because Gnome-do and Docky are so compelling, but with the release of AWN 0.4, I’m pretty much Mono-free now. Thanks for the post.

  • monkeyx says:

    Hmm Mono is an open source project and deserves to treated like any other project. Having such a CLOSED view does not bode well for the open source part of your blog name! You are the one dragging this thing up again, by posting on your blog! Why not just use a distro that ships without mono and then you will not have to keep posting daft articles like this!

    • monkeyx says:

      The above comment was supposed to go in the mono section 🙂

    • Anonymous says:

      Mono is an UNLICENSED open source implementation of .NET. By attempting to impement a .NET compatible platform there is no guarantee that it will not implement Proprietary Microsoft patented technologies. At which point Microsoft will once again,(count on it)attempt to impose a “tax” (royalty fees) on Linux or whatever component they can.

      To Microsoft it means “if you build for Mono, it will run on .NET” > “If it runs on .NET why waste your time with Linux, just use MS Windows”

      http://www.mono-project.com/What_is_Mono

      What is Mono

      Mono is a software platform designed to allow developers to easily create cross platform applications. It is an open source implementation of Microsoft’s .Net Framework based on the ECMA standards for C# and the Common Language Runtime. We feel that by embracing a successful, standardized software platform, we can lower the barriers to producing great applications for Linux.

  • Andrew says:

    I am curious why you removed non-mono libraries such as libsqlite0?

  • Mark says:

    Just a quick reminder that there is no need at all to purge Mono if you install Kubuntu 10.4.

    The approximate equivalent applications in Kubuntu are:
    FSpot == digikam + kipi plugins (this comes with its own photo image editor)
    (image viewer) == Gwenview
    Banshee == Aamrok (or use Juk if you want a lightweight audio player)
    Tomboy == Basket Notes
    GnomeDo == Krunner

    Some of these are more functional than the GNOME/Mono equivalents, some less functional. If you need a raster graphics editor and digikam is insufficient, then Krita is a reasonable option, however GTK+ applications (such as GIMP) integrate well enough that they too are perfectly useable without looking too much out of place.

    Kubuntu 10.4 installs Krunner, Gwenview and Amarok by default. digikam, basket notes, krita and kipi plugins are all additional downloads.

    Enjoy.

    • betterOption says:

      or a better option instead kubuntu is install a goor KDE distro like openSUSE, Fedora or Mandriva. 😉

  • Jo Shields says:

    libsqlite0 is no longer needed in your list. See http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/bz7u4/how_to_remove_mono_from_ubuntu_1004_lucid_lynx/c0pbuv3 for an explanation.

    Try: “aptitude purge mono-runtime libgdiplus cli-common libglitz1”

    Also, please highlight to people, since it still gets a lot of airtime, that “mononono” doesn’t work. You can have mononono, Gbrainy, and Tomboy, all installed at once without conflicts (but not F-Spot).

  • UbuntuNoob says:

    Just wanted to say thanks. UNE 10.04 FTW 🙂

  • ernesto says:

    Removing pulseaudio will be great thanks!

    • Alan Lord says:

      @ernesto, lol. Good one. 🙂

      On my new laptop (with Lucid) the sound is virtually mute until you “wiggle” one of the sliders in the preferences control. That is not, unfortunately, persistent across reboots however.

  • Will Godfrey says:

    Thanks lot for this. Don’t trust anything remotely connected to Microsoft, and running this on an eeePC901 means i get valuable disk space back 🙂

  • Aaron says:

    Thank goodness xubuntu doesn’t include any of that crap.

  • lb says:

    Sheesh! 27.1MB freed! And that’s just 10.04-installed mono + gbrainy, as my 9.10 install was already monofree, so the other apps were already uninstalled.

    Thanks for posting instructions!

  • Jack Marxer says:

    Please add in the beginning that you don’t need to do this if you use Kubuntu. That saves reading so many comments to discover that.

    • Alan Lord says:

      @Jack,

      Thanks for commenting but I do not think it is necessary to add that.

      I do not mention Kubuntu. This post is about Ubuntu.

      Also, most visitors to this post will already know why they are here too.

      • 42 says:

        Hmm..

        I don’t quite agree with the fact the people know. Most people I have encountered think like this: linux = Ubunutu = Kubuntu = Mandrake. Most people, beginners, don’t know the difference between KDE and Gnome, so I think it’s very valid to mention that Kubuntu is not affected by this problem.

        My 2c

        /42

  • Andrew Tierney says:

    Hmmm..

    So its OK to copy OSX themes, DOCKS, use mp3/libcss/microsoft fonts/wine/etc..

    And people wonder why linux is still going NOWHERE…

    Don’t get me wrong.. I’m 100% pro linux.. BUT PLEASE..

    If you want to be PURE.

    Give people instructions on:

    uninstalling DVD Playback, H264 codecs, MP3, LibCSS, the default Ubuntu theme which is similar to OSX buttons, docking etc etc etc..

    Yes.. H264 has MORE issues than Mono.. So do a lot of other linux technologies.

    Be true to your ‘supposed’ patent crap and not the ANTI-Microsoft stuff.

    Show people how to use OGG, etc..

    • none says:

      There’s a basic difference between mono and all the other software you mention: Mono is there to encourage sofware development for the .NET platform. This is developing for a MS controlled platform, and shold be avoided at all costs.

    • Sum Yung Gai says:

      Fortunately, only US people and other places where software patents got the green light have to worry about this. I hope Europe never gets as stupid as the US did this way.

      You’re right about H.264, and that’s why I don’t use it. 🙂 Like Mono (and MP3 before it), H.264 is a patent trap waiting to be sprung. The patent holders even said so, “viewers are free till 2015”. What about after that? As the drug dealers say, “the first hit is free.” Same for Mono.

    • Phil says:

      How about we use common sense here. Company A is actively telling other companies that Linux infringes on its patents and making behind the scenes deals with them to license the technology. Mono is an implementation of company A’s technology where the head guy on that implementation has said he’s not sure whether other distros besides SuSE are licensed to use it. So why would we mistake the removing of Mono with some purist argument?

      And for those that like Mono I don’t see why they just don’t move to SuSE where it is covered. The rest of us may want to keep our system free of the potential patent problems from MS. And the other “issues” brought up in your post don’t quite make sense. MS fonts are free. A lot of people including myself immediately moved the buttons on the windows back to the right. Neither of there pose all that much of a threat as they can easily be changed. However building on a questionable library to the point that its crucial to the desktop is dangerous. Thats why people make a stink about it so that it does not grow to that point. If you want Mono then install it just like Java.

    • nicolas says:

      Your comment is pointless, all these proprietary codecs you mention are not there by default (except for H.264 in Ubuntu’s OEM, because canonical licensed it). F-Spot and Tomboy are.

      Those codecs you mentionned are also not owned by a rival operating system company, and their owners are less known for “suing” than Microsoft.

      You may be 100% pro-linux, but you obviously are new to the whole thing.

      Anyways, Ubuntu and its derivatives are now really bad examples of what a “pure” real GNU/Linux distribution should be, mostly due to the Ubuntu Store thing and the licensing of H.264. Making things idiot-proof is typically bad for everyone (see how Windows made everyone stupid by not having to learn anything, plus it even makes them “administrator” by default, what a nonsense…), educating people is the way to go. They need to either learn to research the web for troubleshooting, know how to use the tools at their disposal to fix their problems OR “Contact their administrator” and stop pretending they are one and that “administrating” is an easy thing you shouldn’t have to learn.

  • Didi says:

    Thanks for the post, love it (and all the other links).
    Why run yet another vm (already have java). I use FreePascal+Lazarus for my programs.
    I will only tolerate Java(vm).

    ps: Andrew Tierney FOSS sets you free, so if we do want to pick on M$ we CAN. M$ is the biggest crime arround. (Bribes/Cheating/ writing code in OS to brake competing browsers (…)).
    The only other people I can think of with that attitude is drug dealers !

  • tracyanne says:

    If I remove mono in this manner, does that mean I’ll be ale to replace it with the latest updates from the mono developers. One of the problems with mono on ubuntu is that you can’t install the latest release from Novell as mono is considered a core component in Ubuntu, due to the 2 or 3 applications that depend on it.

  • […] Cómo eliminar Mono (Microsoft .Net) en Ubuntu (artículo en inglés) http://www.theopensourcerer.com/2010/04/29/how-to-remove-mono-from-…  por PythonMan8 hace 3 segundos […]

  • True_Friend says:

    Mono is a good thing, but this is the spirit of Open Source. Do what you want 🙂 So a good effort to customize the system, just like me who will always want window close button on right position even if they are on left now in Ubuntu 10.04 :-).
    That’s open source.

  • WayneB says:

    I didn’t know anything about Mono until I read this article. What a great framework for building software! Thanks for writing this.

  • Ricardo says:

    Hello, guys!
    Nice job.
    I need a good replacement for Banshee? Any suggestions?

    Thank you!

    “Get that Mono out of here!”

  • Darryl says:

    I see mono just as a extra unnecessary layer of software that any Linux distribution can do without. I cannot see any reason to include it by default, especially for just a few applications, since there are equivalent apps available.

  • mario says:

    Is this the Mono patent FUD again? Someone banging the drums FOR microsoft?
    You know, software patents are an US only problem. SW Patents are void elsewhere in the world, and for non-commercial use they don’t apply anyway.

    If you are concerned about it that much, removing Mono won’t suffice, stupid. If MSFT has software patents on VM technology, Java would most likely infringe too.
    And let’s not forget that Microsoft also aquired triviality patents for all sorts of algortihms that are in the GNU userland and the Linux kernel itself. I’d say they probably have disproportionally more operating system sotware patents than VM pseudo patents. (You know, patenting and inventing are two different things. And it doesn’t ethically matter to them if Linux had all the features first.)

    • Sum Yung Gai says:

      Unfortunately software patents *do* apply for non-commercial use in the US and other countries that allow software patentry.

      Fortunately there’s something called “prior art” in patent law. If Linux or other Free Software had the features first, then bye-bye, patent.

      And then there’s IBM, which has more software patents than all other companies *combined*. IBM makes billions every year from both Linux and Java. The folks at MSFT know this, and that’s why they don’t take on any of the big boys (they go after the small fry like TomTom). If they did, that would threaten IBM’s huge revenue stream, and IBM would own Microsoft in short order.

  • […] http://www.theopensourcerer.com/2010/04/29/how-to-remove&#04… indica que para remover mono hay que ejecutar esto: sudo apt-get purge libmono* […]

  • tracyanne says:

    Thanks. That seems to work fairly well. I uninstalled Mono, using your instructions, and I seem to be able to install a newer version using the Debian Repository. I’ll give it a bit more testing, but so far it looks like once I have the Ubuntu version, and more particularly the depenant applications, removed, I can more closely track the Mono and Mono develop teams.

    Great work.

  • tracyanne says:

    I use Shotwell, it is a really nice Phot Manager, it integrates well with the GNOME desktop, unlike DigiKam which I’ve also used in place of F-Spot, and is much nicer to use than F-Spot, which seems to be a horrible coppy of the Mac OSX photomanager.

  • […] equivalentes, Mono Cuando se desinstala Mono dejan de funcionar algunos programas. En http://www.theopensourcerer.com/2010/04/29/how-to-remove&#04… recomiendan los siguientes como […]

  • […] Lucid of Mono Filed under: Linux — 0ddn1x @ 2010-05-07 20:49:44 +0000 http://www.theopensourcerer.com/2010/04/29/how-to-remove-mono-from-ubuntu-10-04-lucid-lynx/ Leave a Comment TrackBack […]

  • WayneB says:

    The nice thing about Windows is that it’s not as fragmented as Linux because there are no freetards out there trying to get some random sub-system removed from Windows.

    Long Live Microsoft!

    • nicolas says:

      Oh it is a sooo random sub-system…

      And why do payingtards (or should i say captivetards ?) like you even bother to post comments on blogs you can’t even understand.

      • WayneB says:

        So you’re disagreeing then? You don’t think that Linux is fragmented because of stuff like this? Gimme a break. You guys can’t even decide on a window manager and the kernel is bloated with so much crap, just ask Linus. He knows.

        Obviously I don’t know what I’m talking about though. You need to be a Rocket Surgeon to understand Linux and Mono!

        • nicolas says:

          The GNU/Linux desktop is not “fragmented”, what you refer to is simply choices, I fully understand too many choices is confusing for the average user, that’s why distributions choose a default for everything, install Ubuntu, do you have Gnome/KDE/XFCE/LXDE/Enlightenment installed all at once ? No, you got Gnome with a set of default applications, you don’t have to choose if you don’t want to.

          The only real “fragmentation” as you would say is for the package management, Fedora will use RPMs where Debian will use APT, if you look at a linux distro timeline there is only two main branches, RPM-based and APT-based distros. Even with that separation, everything is still compatible, if a program is not packaged for your distribution package manager, then grab the tarball and build it yourself, there is no extraordinary skills required, just basic “administrating” skills, something most windows users think they have but they don’t. If you can’t do it, then “Contact your administrator” what’s the problem with that ? It will still be cheaper than to buy a Windows product and have it reinstalled every six months by the Geek Squad for 200$ because you got viruses even if you have one of the major anti-virus.

          • nicolas says:

            I forgot to mention:

            You can expect the next fragmentation to be pro-mono distros and mono-free distros.

            Is it the end of the world, four fragments of linux distros.. What about Windows Server, Windows Mobile and Windows Media Center and the standard Windows, don’t you also consider these as fragments ?

          • WayneB says:

            As a user, I don’t care about fragmentation. I like choice and I take advantage of it. The real place that fragmentation hits hard is in the practice of developing software.

            As a software developer, I don’t consider Windows to be fragmented at all. I can release one binary that runs on Windows Server and Windows Workstation (Xp, Vista, 7). The only fragment is Windows Mobile and guess what? The API for programming against Windows Mobile is like 90% the same as it is for the server/workstation versions! All I have to do is make a mobile compatible UI…

            Linux on the other hand, can’t even get their act together with a consistent Audio API. There are plenty of articles out there that back this up. The lack of consistent audio/video/desktop APIs between distros is _the_ reason that is stated by major software companies as the reason why they won’t develop XYZ for Linux.

            OK, sorry for calling your or anyone else a freetard, but I’m right about this. I actually love free (in any sense of the word) software too. I am responsible for introducing my company to Linux and we use it everyday to run Asterisk and FreeSWITCH for simulating phone networks and call activity.

          • WayneB says:

            Also, I just wanted to say that instead of chasing Mono away, you should be welcoming it. It’s not like they’re rebuilding the kernel in Mono. Nobody is losing anything. It’s a nice addition and it offers developers a good choice besides Java/C/C++.

          • nicolas says:

            The thing is, .NET is the leader and Mono follows behind, if in a near future every applications you use has it’s equivalent on Windows and it runs better because they improve .NET before Mono, what will be the point of using Linux ?

            As a software developper it’s not really harder, you just have to build it upon GTK or QT, Alsa or pulseaudio, if you don’t want to do a version for each, okay fine, if your product is good enough someone else will do it for you. What about proprietary software you’ll say ? Look at skype, they’re doing well being built with QT and lots of people use it in gnome without any problems, does it have sound problems with any distro whether it is using pulseaudio, alsa or oss ? No, it does not.

            On the other side, when Mono will get deeper into every linux distro, we won’t be able to get rid of it anymore, why would we want to get rid of it ? Because we can’t tell what they’ll do with their lawyers and software patents, even if they promised not to sue, why should we trust them ?! Have you forgotten they see us as an enemy ?

            Can’t you see this is just another malicious tactical move..

          • WayneB says:

            Skype sucks on Linux compared to the Win/Mac version. There are a lot of complaints specifically about audio quality. Also, Windows gets the features first and then they trickle down to Mac/Linux. So, how would anything be different if it were built in Mono?

            “As a software developer it’s not really harder, you just have to use GTK or QT.”

            Those are just UI kits and they are waaaaay more work than using a managed framework that has good design time support.

            “On the other side, when Mono will get deeper into every linux distro, …”

            Great! I’m looking forward to it. It’s much, much better than the JVM and it’s already got better tool support.

            “Can’t you see this is just another malicious tactical move..”

            One could argue that the GPL is a malicious tactical move as well. I personally would never release code under GPL because it infects everything it touches. BSD, MIT, Mozilla licenses please. This is why I prefer FreeSWITCH to Asterisk. If I modify FreeSWITCH I don’t have to give away my work _if I don’t want to_. I have a choice. GPL takes my choice away.

          • Mark says:

            WayneB says:

            Hardly. The GPL applies ONLY to code released as GPL in the first place. It doesn’t infect anything at all, unless YOU cut and paste SOMEONE ELSE’S GPL CODE into another project. That is YOU doing the infecting, not the GPL.

            “If I modify FreeSWITCH I don’t have to give away my work” … Did you write FreeSWITCH in the first place? If you didn’t, and you modify it, close it, and then sell the modified code as closed source, then you aren’t selling YOUR work, you are selling a derived work which is mostly someone else’s. OTOH, if you DID write FreeSWITCH, and you released it under the GPL originally, then you CAN modify it and release it as closed source because it is your work and you can do that.

            You don’t have to like the GPL, but I really can’t see any point in mis-characterising it. It doesn’t work the way you tried to paint it as.

            The closest “business model” thinking to the GPL is called a “consumer’s co-operative”.
            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_cooperative
            “A consumers’ cooperative is a cooperative business owned by its customers for their mutual benefit. It is a form of free enterprise that is oriented toward service rather than pecuniary profit. Consumers’ cooperatives often take the form of retail outlets owned and operated by their consumers.”

            If you don’t want to be a member of the GPL consumer’s co-operative, and to mutually enjoy with us the collaboratively created, low cost, quality software, then bug off and don’t bother those of us who do.

          • WayneB says:

            “Hardly. The GPL applies ONLY to code released as GPL in the first place.”

            Check your facts please. In the software industry we have these things called “libraries” that can be statically or dynamically linked to. GPLed libraries CANNOT be statically linked to unless the code linking to them is also GPL.

            That’s the infection. I believe that with GPLv3, you can’t even dynamically link.

          • WayneB says:

            Also, besides linking… If you release a GPL program that has 100 lines of code and I come along and I want to modify it, I can’t do so without also giving away my own code. Even if I am adding 900 lines of code which would now make up the majority of the work. That’s another example of the infection. There’s no real choice. I have to re-write your 100 lines of code without having looked at the GPL code. But it’s too late, I already looked at it!

          • Mark says:

            @WayneB

            Sigh! Such misinformation, why do you wish to spread lies like that?

            OK, here goes to correct you:

            You said:
            >”Check your facts please. In the software industry we have these things called “libraries” that can be statically or dynamically linked to. GPLed libraries CANNOT be statically linked to unless the code linking to them is also GPL.”

            Yes. As I stated, “The GPL applies ONLY to code released as GPL in the first place”. The thing called the “library” is code that was released as GPL in the first place. When you link such code to your project, you include it in your project, and so you created a “derived work” (Google it). Ownership of the resulting derived work is split between you and the original authors of the library you linked in. You must come to an agreement with the other co-authors of your derived work, or you may not release it. If you do not wish to be bound by this perfectly reasonable requirement, then do not link in any GPL libraries in the first place.

            “That’s the infection. I believe that with GPLv3, you can’t even dynamically link”.

            It is not an “infection”, that is you actively using some GPL code (that someone else wrote) inside of your product. It is you making your product a “derived work”, and hence not all your own original work. The GPL3 license is no different to GPL2 in this respect. Most copyleft libraries are actually licensed as LGPL2 or LGPL3, which means you CAN dynamically link them, BTW. Even if a library is licensed GPL2 or GPL3, you can often still buy a license from the authors to use it commercially in your works. This practice is know as “dual licensing”.

            So much for your claim of “CANNOT”. You are way, way off the mark.

            You also said:
            >”Also, besides linking… If you release a GPL program that has 100 lines of code and I come along and I want to modify it, I can’t do so without also giving away my own code. Even if I am adding 900 lines of code which would now make up the majority of the work. That’s another example of the infection. There’s no real choice. I have to re-write your 100 lines of code without having looked at the GPL code. But it’s too late, I already looked at it!”

            Check your facts. If there is a 1000-line derived work of which you wrote 900 lines, then you can reasonably claim 90% ownership of the derived work. If the authors of the 100 lines (10% of the derived work) will not agree to selling you a commercial license to use their 100 lines, then the simplest course of action for you is to re-write those 100 lines.

            Finally, your are perfectly at liberty to study GPL code to your heart’s content. This is one of the four freedoms of the GPL, so peruse it as much as you want. Change it and use it for your own purpose as much as you like. The ONLY thing that the GPL disallows is for you to directly COPY lines of GPL code (literal cut and paste) into your work which you then subsequently re-distribute to people. Even if you do that, all that the GPL requires is that you give those 100 lines to any recipients under the same conditions that you yourself received them. That is … since you received source code, you must give any recipient of that code the source code as well. Either that, or obtain the same code under a different license (i.e. dual license).

          • WayneB says:

            First of all, not every library is released under LGPL. Many, many libraries out there are released only under GPL and if you statically OR dynamically link to them, your code must be GPL. Your library is now infecting my code with GPL requirements. Re-writing your entire library is the only solution in such cases.

            Use of the word infection is SUBJECTIVE, so if I consider it an infection than that’s what it is to me. It’s too tempting for programmers to be lazy and NOT re-write that library so the infection grows. How am I lying then?

            Furthermore, if you’re saying that GPL is not an infection (not a malicious tactic) because I must AGREE to the terms of using it… then how could Mono possibly represent a malicious tactic? …since I must also agree to the terms of using that. Nothing is being forced on anybody. So why is anybody complaining?

            “If the authors of the 100 lines (10% of the derived work) will not agree to selling you a commercial license to use their 100 lines, then the simplest course of action for you is to re-write those 100 lines.”

            How is that statement any different from the following solution to everyone’s perceived “patent threat” from Microsoft? This solution has been stated many times by Miguel de Icaza:

            If Microsoft ever threatened to sue anybody using Mono over patents, the Mono guys would simply re-write the portions of code that violate the patents.

          • WayneB says:

            BTW, I am NOT of the opinion that GPL is a malicious tactic. I’m simply playing devil’s advocate.

            What I am trying to point out is that using Mono is no more evil than using GPL code to build software. You agree to the terms or you don’t. If Mono represents a conspiracy, so does GPL.

            The other point that I made was about how Linux gets way more fragmented than other OSes. Say what you want about that, I think the facts are pretty clear on this.

          • Mark says:

            >Your library is now infecting my code with GPL requirements.

            No, it isn’t. YOU put the GPL code into the mix. That is your own action, that was you taking short-cuts by trying to use someone else’s work in a way that they expressly stated they did not want you to. Most emphatically, it is NOT the GPL code somehow doing something evil to your work.

            >Re-writing your entire library is the only solution in such cases.

            Writing your own library, or paying to use someone else’s, is the only fair solution in all commercial cases. Some people write open source code under a BSD license which will let you use it commercially, but that is in the significant minority.

            >Use of the word infection is SUBJECTIVE, so if I consider it an infection than that’s what it is to me. It’s too tempting for programmers to be lazy and NOT re-write that library so the infection grows. How am I lying then?

            Nope. You say “infection”, (but you agree it is being lazy), and I say you are simply trying to use an illegal short-cut. By using some source code against its license terms you are trying to cheat, and to steal from the authors of the GPL code, particularly so if they offer to dual license their code. The law happens to agree with me and not with you.

          • WayneB says:

            “YOU put the GPL code into the mix”

            And? In the English language, the word “infection” may be used to describe things that people do voluntarily. “Heroin is becoming an infection in South Philadelphia.” “There is a rash of violence happening in Camden.” People CHOOSE to use Heroin in the same way they choose to use GPL because there are some perceived benefits.

            Now, if you LIKE Heroin then you obviously don’t see a rise in Heroin usage as an infection. Especially if you’re a drug dealer. That is why my comment is subjective. You can disagree all you want, but that’s just because you’re on the other side of the fence.

            Can we get past this now? As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, the infection comment was just to prove a point about Mono anyway and I’d rather get back to that anyway. But first…

            “… and I say you are simply trying to use an illegal short-cut.”

            I’m trying to do no such thing. As I mentioned previously, I personally don’t integrate GPL code into any of my work. So NO, I’m not trying to cheat anybody or force them to do what I want. I’d rather pay for a commercial license.

            Whether you agree with my analogy, or that my analogy is correct is not the point. Someone said that Mono represents a malicious tactic. I disagree and I simply say that if Mono represents a malicious tactic then so does anything that requires voluntary usage. If you have something to say about that I’d be interested to hear it.

  • Didi says:

    Hi WayneB,

    Just FYI there is already a very good OPEN alternative to Mono for developing on cross-platform. It is called Lazarus. Lazarus is the GUI libs for FreePascal with a IDE like Delphi. Once U created your app, you just select the widget set to bind to (Gtk,Gtk++,Qt,Win,Carbon,….). Unlike Java/Mono they try to Write Once, Compile any where.

    Pascal installs good habits for programming and is the only well known alternative to C/C++ that can compete with speed+memory usage.

    I agree, I love choice and that is why I hate Mono being forced on us. After install I first remove all the mono libs so that the update won’t download all the Mono libs.

  • libre fan says:

    Many thanks for this article and the other ones on Mono which is a pest or a bug, in the sense Mark Shuttleworth defined it in his statement about the use of Ubuntu.

    I don’t understand why Ubuntu should include stuff by Novell when they have rejected the deal with M$ that Novell accepted.

    I’m glad to hear about the existence of Lazarus (thanks Didi).

    I have a question about the removal of Mono. I use aptitude instead of apt and aptitude doesn’t understand libmono*.

    So after using your command with aptitude, I checked to see if libmono stuff was still there. Plenty of it which I purged. It takes time though.

    I’m not sure the command actually purge all programms and libs. Perhaps adding “purge” would help.

  • libre fan says:

    Sorry my mistake, you did write “purge” but aptitude doesn’t seem to purge everything. I’ll go and check in Synaptic.

  • libre fan says:

    Hello everybody,

    Why do you remove libglitz-glx1* libglitz1*, Open Sourcerer?

    Here’s my suggestion:
    sudo aptitude purge mono-runtime libgdiplus cli-common

    That seems to take care of it all.

    What do you think?

  • rolly says:

    I support this last question…
    Why libglitz-glx1* and libglitz1*?
    Regards
    r.

  • Aint says:

    Just look at fedora goddard. mono free, stable, secure. while suse and ubuntu loosing users, fedora is growing.

  • Artemis3 says:

    Excellent, i just freed 120MiB of useless junk 🙂 Shotwell is very good, since gthumb stopped working to import photos (some bug it seems). As for .net… never seen any app made in windows to work well with mono; at least Java works. I wish ubuntu used shotwell and gnote by default.

  • […] theopensourcerer.com: How to remove Mono from Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx [Updated] Wikio Author: ubunter Categorías: El Taller, Tips, Ubuntu Etiquetas: Mono, […]

  • stlouisubntu says:

    Alan,

    Will you do me a favor and check my new Ubuntu lucid remix?

    My release announcement for the Beta is at:

    http://sourceforge.net/news/?group_id=345820&id=291400

    The idea, at least in part, is to continue on with the CLR-9.10 from directex from Karmic but with more default applications and settings replaced with “saner” ones.

    Thanks. Kindest Regards.

  • IPristy says:

    Microsoft has become neighbor of Linux and they are just a bully with massive market share, so that means Canonical was forced to use Mono. Linux desktop is not fragmented and now it is with Mono. So what do you do to shut up the bully i say write viruses over Mono and deploy on .Net on Windows, what else is there to do? You don’t attack neighbor with an ax so we need more intelligent approach. Removal is one thing but eventually master system will use Mono and then am done with this circus. Bye

  • […] to remove it from my system. The Open Sourcerer has a nicely written up set of instructions for 10.04 Lucid Lynx and 10.10 Maverick Meerkat. Leave a comment | Trackback No comments […]

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