One significant milestone that I think would signal how much mono has progressed is its presence on an embedded device that is also a mobile computing platform. I am talking about the Nokia 770. Thanks to Paolo Molaro and Geoff Norton, this was achieved back on September 20, 2005.

This original release was more of a proof of concept. One could argue that this was a release aimed at developers, since it was shipped as a compressed tar file. The Nokia 770 does not make it easy for end users to install and/or configure applications distributed in that way.

Now, in February 2005, mono has reached a new milestone in this field. Paolo Molaro has put together a Debian package with the latest mono version that end users of the 770 can easily install and uninstall cleanly.

Some of changes since the original tarball include: a broken down directory structure that more closely mirrors mono deployments on other platforms like Linux and Windows, refreshed binaries that are based on mono 1.1.13 (compared with the first incarnation that used 1.1.9) and GAC runtime support.

However, this accomplishment also opens the gates for mainstream mono application development and deployment on the 770. To capitalize on this new development, I have created a tutorial tittled:

Creating a Nokia 770 Debian Package for a Mono Application

This is a first pass at this subject. If the community finds it useful, I will consult with Miguel de Icaza to see if he would like it included in the mono-project Wiki.

As usual, your comments are always welcome.