For Debian users, do 'apt-get install mono mono-gac'.

Then download the latest version of F# from microsoft at: http://research.microsoft.com/fsharp/release.aspx

Unzip the distribution file from Microsoft. This file contains an install script named install-mono.sh

Unfortunately, the install-mono.sh file came out DOS formatted on my machine and refused to run. (On ubuntu, 'apt-get install tofrodos' and run 'dos2unix install_mono.sh').

(copying the script into another emacs buffer and saving fixed the DOS formatting problem for me - might be quicker if you are on OS X and don't feel like finding the tools /JAM)

As an alternate, you can try the following makefile.

On mono 1.1.13.6, with FSharp version 1.1.13.8, the "aot" option doesn't work. I suspect this has something to do with Ubuntu's lack of support for the "newest and greatest" version of Mono. (Note: Mono 1.2 is required! Just install it!).

Contact Stephen Tse <stse@cis.upenn.edu> for further assistance.

        bin=/usr/local/bin


        all: aot install


        aot:
                mono --aot bin/fslib10.dll
                mono --aot bin/mllib10.dll
                mono --aot bin/FSharp.Compiler10.dll
                mono --aot bin/fsi10.exe
                mono --aot bin/fscp10.exe
                mono --aot bin/fslexp10.exe


        install:
                gacutil -i bin/fslib10.dll
                gacutil -i bin/mllib10.dll
                gacutil -i bin/FSharp.Compiler10.dll


                cp bin/fslib10.dll* $(bin)
                cp bin/mllib10.dll* $(bin)
                cp bin/FSharp.Compiler10.dll* $(bin)
                cp bin/fsi10.exe* $(bin)
                cp bin/fscp10.exe $(bin)
                cp bin/fslexp10.exe* $(bin)
                cp bin/FSharp.Interactive.Settings*.dll $(bin)
                cp bin/FSharp.Compiler.Server.Shared*.dll $(bin)


                echo -e '#!/bin/sh\nfscp10.exe --gnu-style-errors 0 $$*' > $(bin)/fsc
                chmod +x $(bin)/fsc


                ln -fs fsi10.exe $(bin)/fsi
                ln -fs fslexp10.exe $(bin)/fslex

* PLEASE NOTE THAT THE "aot" OPTION USING MONO ON A MAC-OS-X INSTALLATION DOS NOT WORK. ONE CAN STILL RUN THE COMPILER AND GENERATE EXE FILES, BUT THE COMPILER START TIMES ARE VERY SLOW.

20070902: Note about Ubuntu Feisty Fawn (7.04). Seems necessary to 'apt-get install libmono-winforms1.0-cil', not 2.0 version. Seems necessary to install with root's privilege

20080110: For 1.9.2.9 and Ubuntu 7.10, I additionally had to install the following packages:

 mono-gac
 libmono-system-runtime2.0-cil
 libmono-winforms2.0-cil

After that, I was able to do

 ./bin/fsi.exe