Mono's VMWare Image: Sometimes a ZIP is not a ZIP

So it finally came down to it: I wanted to run Linux in order to test some Mono interoperability code. We are writing libraries that will be used in .NET/Windows environments as well as C++/Linux environments, and getting the pointer buggery correct is important. We've got a C++ program (with a 25 year pedigree) that needs to start using components we'd just as soon write using .NET.

This is a case where I am not comfortable just testing some things in Mono on OS X because the issue is not managed code, but specifically unmanaged code. OS X has enough of its own skeletons; I don't want to sweat the wrong details. So I've gone off to the Mono site and downloaded their most recent VMWare image. It downloads in 20 minutes or so and unzips in another five. In a strange twist, I found that if I unzipped it using OS X's command line unzip command, the command complained about corrupted zip entries. VMWare started the unzipped mess properly, but nothing quite worked right correctly in the resultant image. I used the GUI unzip (whatever happens when you double-click the ZIP file in Finder) and it worked like a charm. Humph.

So I guess my Linux world for the next few weeks or months will be openSUSE 10.2, Novell's pet distribution. We'll see how it goes. I love that every few years as I play with Linux I have to learn a new package management library.