CLR package guidelines
This document defines the standard for packaging Common Language Runtime (.NET) projects under Arch Linux. Currently only Mono is capable of providing a usable, efficient CLR runtime for multiple systems and this standard will reflect its use. Be aware that a lot of CLR programs were developed with Microsoft .NET in mind and, as such, may or may not run under Mono because of .NET-exclusive factors such as P/Invoke calls and Microsoft digital rights management (DRM) APIs and are thus will not yield a usable package for Arch Linux. However, if combined with Wine as of version 1.5.6 (?), your package may have a chance to run under it. Please see the Wine PKGBUILD Guidelines for more information if such is the case.
Packaging gotchas
- Always add mono to
depends
- Always set
arch
toany
. Mono does not yet support compiling (running?) 64-bit assemblies. - Always add
!strip
tooptions
- If the package is a library (DLL), consider installing it to Mono's global assembly cache (GAC) if it is to be used as a dependency.
- If the assembly is precompiled and comes with a program debug database file (Foo.dll.pdb), consider converting it as such:
pdb2mdb Foo.dll
- If the package is meant to be executed (EXE), be sure to install to
/usr/bin
a shell script to run it, similar to this one:
#!/bin/sh mono foo.exe "$@"
Signed assemblies
If the package is to be installed into the GAC, be sure it has a signed key file. If not, you can generate one like this: sn -k 1024 Foo.snk
. Following that, the easiest way to embed the key file into the assembly is to disassemble it like this: . Afterwards, reassemble it like so:
Sample PKGBUILDs
The following examples will try to cover some of the most common conventions and build systems.