Using F# with Fake 5 and local netcore without specific system prerequisites

[Casper Bollen]

Any suggestions to the following use case:

Description

I am interested to know if it is a feasible option to start, and develop a local F# project without any system wide installation of a .net framework like mono, .net, netcore. It seems that Fake 5 is aiming to do this? I tried to set this up. But I am not sure this will be supported in the future and whether my setup and assumptions are right.

My questions:

1. Is it possible, or will it be possible to setup, build and run an F# project on Windows, Linux, or macOS using a local netcore SDK, without any machine dependencies?
2. Is it possible to have intellisense in a code editor like Atom or Visual Code using this approach?
3. When running ./fake.sh with this setup I get an error message when installing, but the installation seems fine and when I run a script, ./fake.sh run --script script.fsx, then I get warnings about local caching, but the script runs fine as well. Are these relevant problems for my setup?

I have gotten thus far:

Repro steps

1. Start with a fresh Ubuntu install. Add curl and libunwind8 and git to the installed Ubuntu.

2. Clone the Fake repository.

3. Copy the .fake.sh and script/obtain_fake.sh files to a local directory.

4. Run ./fake.sh. This will install a local netcore Fake installation. The script will report an error code but everything seems fine.

5. Create an fsx file and run the file with: ./fake.sh run --script file.fsx. This will generate warnings about local caching, but again, it seems to work.

Expected behavior

Being able to use the local downloaded netcore framework for developing and building.

Actual behavior

It is possible with this minimal installation to setup a local fsharp project without any machine wide dependencies other than git, curl and libunwind8 on Ubuntu 14.04. You seem to be able to run an F# script file, however, I don't know how to actually build or have intellisense for an F# project.

Related information

• Ubuntu, macOS, Windows
• CoreCLR or Mono