KeePass2 & Mono

[groeder]

Hello!

I have been trying to get KeePass2 working with mono. I have installed all of the mono packages as well as xdotool and when I use mono to run the exe, all I get is a button on the taskbar that I can't do anything with. I have to go into system monitor to close mono to stop the program or cancel the operation if I used the terminal to open it. Has anyone been able to get this working on 'new' Linux distros? I have the same result on LMDE, Mint 10 Gnome, and Fedora 14 Gnome. I am able to use KeePassX, but I would rather use some of the features available to KeePass2 if I can get it to work. Thanks!

[krustybaguette]

Hello!

I have been trying to get KeePass2 working with mono. I have installed all of the mono packages as well as xdotool and when I use mono to run the exe, all I get is a button on the taskbar that I can't do anything with. I have to go into system monitor to close mono to stop the program or cancel the operation if I used the terminal to open it. Has anyone been able to get this working on 'new' Linux distros? I have the same result on LMDE, Mint 10 Gnome, and Fedora 14 Gnome. I am able to use KeePassX, but I would rather use some of the features available to KeePass2 if I can get it to work. Thanks!

I too wish I had the solution as I am trying to make KeePass2 work on an SD flash stick. I got LM10 installed as a dual boot with Windows 7 without a hitch, but now comes the hard part, getting apps to work I had been using KeePassX on a g4 Mac and BodhiLinux on two separate machines as well as KeePass2 on a Windows laptop. Now I'm trying to simplify by having one database for Windows and Mint10. (The g4 Mac is history)
The idea is that I will be able to use the same database file whether I'm using Linux or Windows if I get mono to work. In Package Manager many of the mono packages have a green check mark. Does that mean they are already installed on my system? In the file system there are several mono folders as well. In /etc/mono there are 1.0 and 2.0 folders while in /usr/share there is only a 1.0 folder. According to the mono webpage you need to have Vs. 2.6 or greater installed. If I can get it to run would the 2.0 folder contain Vs. 2.67 which is supposed to be part of LM10 though I can't find it in the programs menu.

KeePass website http://keepass.info/help/v2/setup.html#mono talks about creating a batch (.bat) file to start KeePass2 using mono but would that work in Linux?

Keep posted until solution is found.

krustybaguette

[krustybaguette]

Hello!

I have been trying to get KeePass2 working with mono. I have installed all of the mono packages as well as xdotool and when I use mono to run the exe, all I get is a button on the taskbar that I can't do anything with. I have to go into system monitor to close mono to stop the program or cancel the operation if I used the terminal to open it. Has anyone been able to get this working on 'new' Linux distros? I have the same result on LMDE, Mint 10 Gnome, and Fedora 14 Gnome. I am able to use KeePassX, but I would rather use some of the features available to KeePass2 if I can get it to work. Thanks!

Did you ever get KeePass2 to work under mono? I have the portable one working now. It's on an SD card so whether I boot into Linux or Windows I can run the same program and any new passwords I create or edit get saved in the same database so I don't have to update or worry about missing passwords!

I wish I could remember the exact steps I took. I think I installed the program in Windows then went back to Mint. Here's a shot of my version information:



From that I guess I downloaded it from the Debian part of mono's download site. Don't remember if I had to add a repository or what. Once installed I created a desktop launcher and added "mono" before the command. Opens up just like that. One click. Hope this helps.

krusty

[Habitual]

a really good alternative is the Firefox plugin called LastPass.

[sgosnell]

LastPass and KeePass aren't really that comparable. LastPass stores everything in the cloud. I've never tried KeePass, I use KeePassX, and it works well for me. There are Linux and Windows versions, as well as an Android version, so I can use it on my smartphone. I keep my database in my Dropbox folder, so I have access to it from everywhere, and it's automatically synced anytime I make a change to it. LastPass is handy for autofilling logins, but it's just about as easy with KeePassX, with a keystroke mapped to have it autofill the info. I've used both, and I prefer KeePassX. YMMV.

[tjweaver]

Once nice thing about Keepassx is that it is compatible with Keepass. So I use Keepass on my win7 computer at work - save the db file in dropbox - and then access and make changes to the db file with Keypassx on my LMDE computer at home.

[Marklar]

I know KeePass works out of the box on Mint 11 but not on LMDE

I got it working but this may be a bit overkill

When I first tried launching it it was telling me that it was missing the System.Windows.Forms assemblies

so I installed libmono-winforms2.0-cil but no luck.

Then I ran,
sudo apt-get install mono-complete

This installs all development and runtime libraries afaik. Having all those packages may be unnecessary for most people but it got it working.

And to launch the program, this is what I have done

I downloaded the portable version of KeePass and extracted the zip file to

/home/marklar/Applications/KeePass/

to start the app you just run

mono /home/marklar/Applications/KeePass/KeePass.exe

And of course, you should put that in the command field in a shortcut for quicker access.

[krustybaguette]

I know KeePass works out of the box on Mint 11 but not on LMDE

I got it working but this may be a bit overkill
Then I ran,
sudo apt-get install mono-complete

This installs all development and runtime libraries afaik. Having all those packages may be unnecessary for most people but it got it working.

And to launch the program, this is what I have done

I downloaded the portable version of KeePass and extracted the zip file to

/home/marklar/Applications/KeePass/

to start the app you just run

mono /home/marklar/Applications/KeePass/KeePass.exe

And of course, you should put that in the command field in a shortcut for quicker access.

This is what the original poster is asking for, not suggestions about other programs for keeping passwords. I stick with KeePass Portable version after using the various Linux, Mac, and Windows versions which don't use the same database format. I've dumped my Mac now I run the portable version on a SD card which I can use under Mint or Win7. Same SD card, same executable file, same database, so whether I add a new password in Windows or Linux it's there when I use either operating system. Mono rocks.
And no storage "on the cloud" which I still don't trust for something as critical as passwords.

One question that sticks in my mind though is how does mono differ from WINE?

[Marklar]

One question that sticks in my mind though is how does mono differ from WINE?

Mono is an open-source cross platform implementation of Microsoft's .NET framework

So if an application is written in C#, it might be able to run in Mono but it will not run in Wine.

Mono and .NET are somewhat similar to the Java Runtime Environment. The code written in C# isn't compiled into machine language like C/C++ is as it has to run in a virutal machine that executes the code. Mono and the .NET framework are the virtual environment.

Also, Mono isn't necessarily just used for running Windows .NET apps in linux. There are some linux only apps that run in Mono such as Tomboy Notes and Banshee

In a nutshell it is a run time environment for programs written in C# while Wine is a compatibility layer that translates Windows API calls to Linux.

I didnt know until today that apps like KeePass that are written using Windows Forms (a C# library from MS) would run under Mono. So i guess some parts of Mono may share some similarities with Wine in that it "translates" since Mono isn't endorsed by Microsoft.