Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2017 February 4

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February 4

Free software

I am an amateur software developer. I spend my weekends running a few projects, however my horizon is very limited. It is not what I do for a living. I do applications mostly in C++ and C# but I am fairly ignorant about the system. Currently I have this HP Pavilion with Win-10. I also have this C# package someone else wrote and I need to modify and use it. I used to buy MSDN membership for roughly $900.00 a year which gave me access to most of MS software, like Visual Studio, etc. That hardware I had it on installed crashed and I looked for alternatives. It turns out there is Blend for Visual Studio and it is free. I wonder, why is it free? Is it deficient in something? I found compilers for C++ and C# there is good shape. That "Blend" part confused me and I was uncertain if I should go ahead and install it, but it seems to be OK.

The C# Package I mentioned refers to three namespaces that Blend could not swallow. They are NUnit, NUnit.Core and NUnit.Framework. It seems the package was in fact developed on MonoDevelop which is another free download. It turns out that in order to have MonoDevelop I have to install GTK for the .NET. Fine, I installed it. Then I installed Xamarin Studio which is the same as MonoDevelop (?) I guess. Still it is not enough, I have to install Cygwin, it turns out. Fine, I installed it. The instructions are here[1]. If you open this web page you will see that I also need to have Microsoft Visual Studio installed but the Community Edition works fine they say. I think Blend is exactly that Community Edition, right? I have it. And then it asks me to run this mile long command: "setup-x86_64.exe -q......" That command failed with the message (in cmd prompt): "setup-x86_64.exe -q is not recognised as internal or external command." Again I want to remind that I am doing all this in Windows-10 on HP Pavilion.

Where shall I go from here? Is anybody out there who are familiar with this bounty of free software?

That's another question that's bothered me for years. Why is it so much free software out there. I mostly use Linux Ubuntu which is by Canonical Ltd. It works just fine and I wonder why do they offer a free operating system? Is there some hidden benefit for them to do it that we are not aware of? It is all very strange. It is a marvelous world out there discounting a paranoid feeling that it may all be heavily malware infested . Thanks, --AboutFace 22 (talk) 18:26, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

First thought is are you using Windows 10 x86-64 or x86-32? If you're using x32 then it's not surprising setup-x86-64 isn't working and the obvious question is why you're using x32 as well as why you're trying to run the x86-64 version in x86-32. If you are using x64, the next obvious question is are you running the command in the same directory that setup-x86_64.exe is located in? If you're not and directory setup-x86_64.exe is located in isn't in the path (which it probably isn't), then I'm not sure how you expect it to work. Nil Einne (talk) 18:48, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

BTW the latest Visual Studio community is available here [2] or here [3]. If the only thing you have is Blend for Visual Studio (I'm not sure if it's actually possible to get this standalone nowadays) then you don't have Visual Studio Community. To state the obvious you should obtain and install Visual Studio Community or some other variant of Visual Studio before fooling around with something that requires Visual Studio. Nil Einne (talk) 18:53, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

A slap in the face :-). Just kidding. Excellent. Thanks for speedy response. Yes, it is a 64 bit Win-10. Obviously I should have mentioned. When you download Xamarin Studio it does not give you a GUI, it gives you another incarnation of cmd prompt and places an icon on desktop. When you click on it you get regular cmd with this directory:

Mono version 4.6.2 Prepending 'C:\Program Files\Mono\bin\' to PATH C:\Program Files\Mono>

So, you run this command after Mono>

OK, I will try to download the community edition. Yes, it is possible to download and install Blend charge free as I understand. I've done it myself recently. Thank you Nil. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 19:18, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

OK I just got an answer to my question. Blend for Visual Studio IS a Community Edition. The links you gave me, both of them, do not work. It asked me if I wanted to modify or repair or uninstall my Blend when I tried [4] and refused to proceed when I tried the other link[5] saying that the variant I tried to install is an earlier version of the software that is on my computer already. Microsoft is a master to obfuscate things and make your life difficult. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 19:35, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Blend for Visual Studio is not same as Microsoft Visual Studio Community Edition but it is a part of it. I also do not understand why you decided to install MonoDevelop? Do you really need a second IDE in addition to the Visual Studio? GTK, Cygwin and other linux staff are only necessary for MonoDevelop. You only need to install NUnit as I understand. Ruslik_Zero 19:45, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

BTW, Visual Studio Express is free. It will build most projects that the paid-for VS will do. However, it won't build installers or VS plugins. LongHairedFop (talk) 20:13, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

I decided to install MonoDevelop because I know that the software package I need to work on has been developed in MonoDevelop. Right now when I try to compile it in the Blend it gives me 44 errors because it does not have those namespaces and I could not install them so far although tried hard. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 22:47, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

For your other question, see Free software and Free software movement. Also Open-source software and both Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds. One of the reasons the free software movement took off is that developing computer programs is very cheap except for the manpower. So if you have cheap manpower (as in volunteers or students), you can create software very cheaply - cheap enough to give away for fame and in the hope of reciprocity. That turns out to be a good model for e.g. scientific software - and computer science is so new that a lot of software started as a CS project at some university. Others found out that they can benefit from selling hardware and services with and on top of free software - both IBM and Red Hat are examples for that. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:42, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

@Stephan, thank you. Any comment is valuable. Probably you are right. But a lot of free software is not a flash in the pan. They require maintenance, monitoring, generating versions, making sure that updates are available, etc., etc., etc. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 01:26, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Also, that's not really a problem. Good free software, like Linux for example, is very well maintained. Of course there are old and "dead" versions around, but they should be avoided. If you don't like the idea, then dont' use it, but the concept of free software (with GNU or similar licenses) is definitely worth considering. Jahoe (talk) 01:55, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Indeed. Who said anything about "flash in the pan"? 19 years and counting... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:05, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm still fairly confused. Firstly why do you keep referring Blend? As I hinted at and RuslikZero made clear as does the articles, Blend is not the same thing as Visual Studio. It's a component of Visual Studio and it's evidentally either not possible to get Blend without the rest of Visual Studio or it is but you didn't (although did you actually try to modify and make sure you have all components tha matter). However if you need Visual Studio, you should concentrate on the whole package not just one component. In addition, unless you're actually developing user interfaces, I'm not sure why you'd want to use Blend instead of other Visual Studio components anyway.

Second, are you saying above you're trying to run "setup-x86_64.exe" from the path "C:\Program Files\Mono"? Is "setup-x86_64.exe" actually located in that directory? It seems a really weird place to put an installer. Did you put it there yourself? Are you sure that's wise? While an installer will surely need elevated permissions, it stills seems possible it will not like being located there for various reasons.

If you didn't put it there, why do you think it's located there? Your link doesn't work so I have no idea what instructions you were given but it sounds a lot like you're being asked to install cygwin. I'm not even sure if whatever you're doing that told you to install cygwin (as far as I can tell, this isn't a required part of Xamarin only Gtk# so I'm confused precisely what stage this came up) actually downloaded the cygwin installer let alone if it it put it in "C:\Program Files\Mono" or somewhere else that's in the path.

If you either don't even have the cygwin installer or you do have it but it's not located either in the path or the directory you're trying to run it from and you're not specifying the path in the commandline for the installer, I repeat what I said at the beginning, why do you expect this to work? You need to download the cygwin installer, and run it. It's likely -q is simply a quiet install option so I don't see the need to even run it like that. Just run the file (probably by double clicking) like you normally do. If there are other parts of the command line (you said it was a long command line and also included ... so it sounds to me like there should be more to the command line), perhaps these are important but more likely I expect they simply specify what parts of cygwin to install. You could manually choose these or choose to install more if you wish. Up to you, but the main point if you do wish to use the specified command, you need to do it with the installer in the path somehow. Probably by running it from the directory the installer is located in (which will probably be the download directory). Also take care with any quotation marks.

Also as with RuslikZero, I'm now confused why you're even bothering to install Xamarin or MonoDevelop. If your problem is that you have failed to install NUnit then it's fairly unlikely installing Xamarin or MonoDevelop is going to magically help you fix your lack of a proper NUnit installation since as far as I can tell NUnit is not a standard part of either, and wasn't even really developed for either (it can be used with them, sure but that's different).

Rather than trying to install stuff you may or may not need, you need to concentrate first on what you do need. And if you need to install NUnit, you should concentrate on doing that first. Once you've done so, then you can decide whether or not to continue with installing the other components that may be unneeded. It seems using the NuGet nupkg would be the simplest way to install NUnit. Have you done so? Were there any error messages?

I'm assuming you have NuGet since as far as I can tell, it's a standard part of Visual Studio, even the Community Edition. It also looks like you can install it from here [6] however since it's supposed to be a standard part of new versions of Visual Studio (since 2012), if you don't have it you should revisit my earlier question and make sure you have properly installed Visual Studio and not just the Blend component. Probably the simplest option would be to run the installer I mentioned and "modify" your installation and make sure you have all essential components of Visual Studio and not just Blend (probably just install everything unless something isn't recommended).

Nil Einne (talk) 05:48, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Answering to Nil mostly. I told everyone at the start of this OP that I have HP Pavilion. HP Pavilion is an above average computer and you cannot get 32 bit version of it. I doubt anybody makes 32 bit machines nowadays. I also told you that I have installed Blend for Visual Studio on my machine and it is the BLEND. Also I tried to download and install the Community Visual Studio from two websites you offered and in each case I got an error message saying that I already have a Community Edition.

I don't do user interfaces. I do numerical simulations. I have to run very long chains of computations taking sometimes hours. The results I get, I need to visualize and in Ubuntu I use gnuplot which is a totally independent command language. It serves me well. I create 3-D projections using it. I hope I will be able to install it here in Win-10 eventually. In the Blend I need compilers only and I do have them, that's all I need.

As I said, I got a C# package which has not been written by me but by someone else. I opened the solution in the Blend and it compiled one project, however the second project failed to compile because of the NUnit namespace which I have never heard of before. I tried to install it from somewhere, perhaps from the website you mention but it requires to go through steps and at one of the steps it asks for an ID. I don't have an ID. So, thus far I have the BLEND and a project I cannot compile.

I tried to bypass the hurdle by installing the MonoDevelop because I know that the person who wrote the package did it in MonoDevelop. I also ran into strange problems doing it. So, I have to look into it and analyze everything.

Also you seem to think that when I ran the command line installation statement (exec?) I had to do it from a particular directory. This is not correct. The exec must create a dll file and place it into either the Visual Studio or MonoDevelop directory. They are typically bin directories.

Nil, you are a prolific writer :-) I am answering a portion of you post now. I will have to get back to the rest of it in perhaps an hour. Thanks, - --AboutFace 22 (talk) 20:12, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

MINGW may perhaps be of interest if you are looking for a free GCC C/C++ compiler port which has no dependency on the MS tools or VS runtime library which can generate Windows executables and libraries. There also are cross-compiling packages of it on other operating systems, allowing to compile Windows binaries from a unix development workstation, for instance. 76.10.128.192 (talk) 04:00, 8 February 2017 (UTC)