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Well, I know it's run by the *EVIL* Novell corporation, but there's always the option of ASP.Net through mono. In fact there was a huge push to extend ASP.Net 2.0 support in mono for the recent Race To Linux contest. It's well supported, with applications making way into the default install for several Linux distros, including Ubuntu.. I mean it's not like any major site is using it...

This one seems to cover Microsoft's ADO.NET and parts of ASP.NET, neither of which are covered by the ECMA standard for C#/.NET. There are lots more. The Mono project has admitted that ADO.NET, ASP.NET and Windows.Forms are patented extensions by Microsoft, and that they may have to remove those at some time (which would render Mono basically useless for most Windows developers and even some Linux developers).

As far as I'm concerned, mono stands for "mononucleosis". I sure as heck don't want the human version nor the computer version!

Mono means monkey in spanish. Thus the monkey on almost ALL the mono-project pages.

Wow, where does one even start to combat the trolling.

If you look in the Mono.* namespace they've developed a LOT of Mono on its own, including Mono.Xml, Mono.Unix, Mono.Math and a wide vareity of other tools. Not to mention now there are various open source projects out there like DBus#, Dumbarton, and of course Tao.

Mono is a definite option now for cross-platform applications (Solaris, Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, etc) and extends the compatibility to .NET 1.1 and is coming up on having a .NET 2.0 compatible class library.

Don't get yourself mixed up, Mono does allow developers to use .NET code on other platforms, but it is really a powerful framework unto itself nowadays.

Both C# and CIL are ECMA standards, and are also approved by ISO/IEC here and here respectively.

There are also a few companies working on projects that use these standards in their products. So even if you don't want to use Microsoft products, you can still use C# or any other language that compiles for .NET with something like Mono on most of the popular desktop/server operating systems today.

You sure can code ASP on Ubuntu/Linux. http://www.mono-project.com/ASP.NET_and_mod_mono It works with the apache web server.

so, my question is, is there any (easy) way i could be running the .net framework on ubuntu ? no virtual machine if possible, no emulation, just run .net framework on ubuntu ?

At work, we do ASP and ASP.net. Not c#, vb.net. I can read c# but i don't really program with it.

The Mono framework is the Linux implementation of the .NET runtime. It has a working ASP.NET runtime (quite stable) and a VB.NET compiler (stable now, but only fairly recently).

The latest version of Ubuntu (6.10, aka Edgy Eft) does include Mono, but if you plan on doing ASP.NET development and not just hosting, then you'd probably want to download the latest version from the http://www.mono-project.com/ website, because compiler/dev support for VB.NET is pretty new and I don't believe that the tools bundled with Edgy will handle it gracefully. This may require compiling the Mono framework which can take some doing, so you probably would want to check and see if the Mono packaged with Edgy would suit your needs first, because installing that is point-and-click.

Check out the Mono Project. Mono is a .NET implementation on Linux. You will need to make some source code changes to get it to work in Mono, but a lot of the code should work out of the box. I used Mono to port an in-house application we use here at the office into Mono. Our aplication is in C#, but I believe mono will also do ASP.NET. Someone correct me if I'm wrong? I only had to do some minor code changes to get a majority of our .NET application to work under Gentoo and Ubuntu. Some features had to be disabled, like ActiveX of course. I don't believe ActiveX is supported.

(Not the caulking...)

http://www.mono-project.com/

Haha, do you guys know that C# is an open standard, and so is CLI (.Net). I suggest you read the Mono FAQ, it will go over anything I can say a lot better.

I'm just surprised because I hear many people putting Mono and C# down pretty quickly when, when in fact thanks to these things, there have been quite a few innovative things done on the Desktop for Linux, including Banshee, Tomboy, Beagle, and many many more.

Typically the reason for such comments is either ignorance (I don't mean to troll, just trying to think of what can be the cause), as in, the people don't really know the situation, or just doing it because everyone else does it. There's a whole Mono section in the current issue of Linux Format Magazine which seems to kind of inform people on just how Mono is benefiting the Open Source community.

The point isn't for everyone to like it, but at least respect it, after all it's just another Open Source initiative/project and we all should stick together :) Just curious why there's such behavior/attitude towards it.

(a) does the VB.NET environment support most of Windows Forms

Mono has had complete System.Windows.Forms 1.1 API support since Mono 1.2. System.Windows.Forms 2.0 is still being worked on, with the missing methods reported by MoMA getting implemented first.

(b) does it support database access through ODBC, OLE DB, some equivalent to the .NET native providers, or some combination of the above

Mono has many System.Data providers, including System.Data.Odbc, System.Data.OleDb, System.Data.OracleClient, and System.Data.SqlClient, though I can't say how complete these are. You will likely need to test your code.

(c) can it expose and consume Web services with reasonable ease

Mono has had ASP.NET support for quite some time, as well as .NET Remoting, so ASP.NET web services (.asmx files) and .NET Remoting web services are both supported.

It's "Under heavy development" according to their site.

www.mono-project.com/WinForms

.NET is theoretically platform-agnostic. However, Microsoft leaves the implementation of other platforms as an exercise for the reverse engineer. Mono, however, is a proof-of-concept that .NET can be developed and deployed (mostly) on non-Windows platforms.

In my opinion the only place where Windows is really far ahead of Mac OS X is .NET. Or more specifically: C# 2.0. C# is simply the nicest programming language and .NET the most consistent and easiest API that I've ever used. I went from a Java and Obj-C advocate to a C# maniac in about one month of using it. The biggest drawback with .NET is Visual BASIC which is horribly verbose and seems to attract idiot developers.

I think it would be great if Apple would adopt C# as the future of development on Mac OS X. I hate to say this but in comparison Objective-C 2.0 looks positively dated.

Ever heard of Mono? It's not developed by Apple, but it's an open source project sponsored by Novell made to allow for those who run UNIX, Linux, Solaris, and OS X to develop on a .NET platform and run binaries compiled by .NET. So, it is possible to write and develop C# programs if you wanted to on a Mac, and you still don't have to pay the pretty penny you do if you had to purchase .NET ;)

Also, take a look here for some nice Windows installers that'll provide you with Mono, GTK# and some Visual Studio add-ins.

Of course, for development on Linux, MonoDevelop is improving all the time.

I was always under the impression that .NET was strictly for windows, and MS was intentionally shutting out Linux and Mac from using .NET.

It depends on your task. If you are building small to medium-sized web-applications, I would recommend Seaside. For larger projects, there are things like GNUstepWeb and Struts. If you want something slow that doesn't scale well, but is 100% buzzword-compliant, then there's Ruby on Rails. If you want to re-use existing ASP.NET code then you could try Mono.

For many needs, Apache is not a good choice. I personally prefer Lighttpd, which is lighter, faster, and easier to configure. It has nice FastCGI integration, so you can use it with most frameworks.

As for databases, I still haven't found a good reason to use MySQL. If you need a real database, I'd go with PostgreSQL, which is more standards compliant than MySQL, and faster for complex queries. If you want something slightly more structured than a flat file, then try SQLite, which is simple, lightweight, and faster than MySQL for simple queries.

It's even more gay than Ubuntu. Learn a real language.

"ECMA just confirmed the MS Open Office XML format as a standard, not Office in general. MS further states that OOXML will be an "open and royalty-free" specification."

You mean in this same way that C# is a "standard"..?

``C# isn't bad as a language, but it's Microsoft-only and too closely tied to Microsoft's run-time environment, which is too limiting.''

Is it really? I was under the impression that C# was an ECMA standard and had a number of non-Microsoft implementations.

Yeah - It won't even run .NET apps compiled from Managed C++, only those compiled from C#. It also includes a compiler for C# but not for C++, and g++ won't target .NET bytecode.

** ERROR **: Method ':_WinMainCRTStartup ()' in assembly '/mnt/dongzhi/vis/AvatarClient_2006-08-30/Release/ BotClient_WF.exe' contains native code and mono can't run it. The assembly was probably created by Managed C++. [emphasis added]

Apparently your current Managed C++ compiler didn't output .NET bytecode, either, judging from the error message. Did you really expect native code -- compiled specifically for a Windows(TM) environment -- to run under anything other than the MS .NET runtime? From the Mono Technical FAQ:

Managed Extensions for C++ is least likely to operate under Mono. Mono does not support mixed mode assemblies (that is, assemblies containing both managed and unmanaged code, which Managed C++ can produce). You need a fully-managed assembly to run under Mono, and getting the Visual C++ .NET compiler to generate such an executable can be difficult. You need to use only the .NET-framework assemblies, not the C libraries (you can't use printf(3) for example.), and you need to use the linker options /nodefaultlib /entry:main mscoree.lib in addition to the /clr compiler flag. You can still use certain compiler intrinsic functions (such as memcpy(3)) and the STL.

You're obviously not running Windows (or haven't kept up with your updates). Sorry, but that puts you outside the target audience. :) If you ever feel the need to run .NET apps however, there's a project called Mono you might be interested in...

The last time that I was around Microsoft evangelists, the topic of mono was raised. Instantly, the smell of fear was so thick in the air that you could cut it with a knife. I suspect that it was mono that was the motivator behind the recent deal between MSFT and NOVL. I hope that I am wrong but I won't be surprised if http://www.mono-project.com/ quietly goes the way of http://www.hula-project.org/

You can read about this at this Mono page

Summary:

The Mono/C# implementation itself is safe.

The core of the .NET Framework, and what has been patented by Microsoft falls under the ECMA/ISO submission. Jim Miller at Microsoft has made a statement on the patents covering ISO/ECMA, (he is one of the inventors listed in the patent). [...] Basically a grant is given to anyone who want to implement those components for free and for any purpose.

The risky part is the implementations of ASP.NET, ADO.NET and Windows.Forms.

For people who need full compatibility with the Windows platform, Mono's strategy for dealing with any potential issues that might arise with ASP.NET, ADO.NET or Windows.Forms is: (1) work around the patent by using a different implementation technique that retains the API, but changes the mechanism; if that is not possible, we would (2) remove the pieces of code that were covered by those patents, and also (3) find prior art that would render the patent useless.

As long as we use for example Gtk# instead of Windows.Forms, there should be no problems.

Nobody with any sense in the free software world has touched Mono

Right, that is why Debian GNU/Linux was the first to not only package Mono, include it in the distribution but also write a spec describing how packages using Mono can integrate right into the core of the system.

I won't go into how the gtk-sharp toolkit is one of the best maintained and most active language bindings for the gtk+ GUI toolkit incuded in GNOME today.

Free Software developers who haven't touched Microsoft Windows in years or who come from a completely UNIX background are happily writing desktop applications, system daemons and web applications using Mono today.

So, Bruce Perens, what on earth are you talking about?

Ok, I'll bite. Microsoft changes their platform so often, you are better off picking a platform which actually has kept compatibility ever since version one and works in Windows, Linux, MacOS X. Like Java. Heck, you even have free high quality development tools like the Eclipse or NetBeans IDEs.

If you want to use Mono, sure. Just do not get into an hissy fit next time Microsoft decides to completely change the language dropping backwards compatibility, or even dumping it by the wayside. Like they did to QuickBASIC, VB 6.0 and so on. Oh yeah, VB.NET support in Mono sucks. Guess what, they care more about C#.

The issue would be specifically with the Windows compatibility layer (i.e. ASP.net, Windows.Forms, etc.), not in C# or even .NET. For more information about this issue, see the Mono Licensing FAQ.

Read Seth Nickell's thoughts on the issue, particuliarly the section entitled "The Horror Story". It's happening.

It's bad enough that Tomboy is in GNOME and F-Spot (Novell again) is so damned nice. Users are already demanding these applications, because the alternatives suck. Developers love C# 'cause it's so nice to build with. The first few hits are free.

The whole Mono patent issue really strikes me as a Novell play for market share - they work a deal with Microsoft, write gorgeous apps in C# that everyone wants, encourage competing distros to integrate those apps, then laugh as Microsoft takes out their competition in court. Or something. IANAL, obviously. Hopefully I'm just being paranoid.

Sounds like you have become a victim of proprietary technology lock-in.

``but they also need to find suitable replacements for everything.'' ...because the software, APIs, etc. are all proprietary and tied to Windows.

``Visual Studio?''

Proprietary and tied to Windows.

``Learn other editors (vi/emacs), IDEs, debuggers and compilers (gcc?).''

Cross-platform versions of these exist on Windows, too. You could have been using them, instead of the Windows-specific stuff.

``The windows APIs we're used to? Gone.'' ...and good riddance. Welcome to the APIs that virtually every operating system _except_ Windows supports.

``The widgets (winforms/winfx/whatever)? Gone. The frameworks? Gone.''

Same as above.

``C#? Learn another language.''

You don't have to: there's DotGNU Portable.NET and Mono, both of which support C#.

``Scripting languages you know? Learn perl instead.'' ...or any of the multitude of scripting languages that are available on *nix systems. Many of these languages are available for Windows, too.

``SQL Server? Learn another DB inside out.''

You can use standard SQL on any compliant database. Database-independent programming interfaces exist for various programming languages.

If the transition to GNU/Linux (although the same applies to other *nix systems, like OpenBSD, Solaris, or OS X) seems too large a step, you could take a number of smaller steps first, e.g. use cross-platform software on Windows: Firefox, OpenOffice.org, MySQL, Emacs, gcc, Eclipse, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, etc. etc. etc. You can also get a *nix environment on Windows by installing Cygwin.

Something I have been wondering.... GCC now accepts Java source and emits either native binaries or Java bytecode. Can it take C/C++/etc and emit bytecode?

No.

If it is treating bytecode as just another target what if a C# frontend were written? Could gcc take C# on input and emit Java bytecode on the other end? And if a mono backend were added could it compile Java source to it? And if this all came to pass would it be a sure sign the end of times were at hand?

Mono can already do all of this - mono can run Java apps in it's CIL VM, and Java apps can talk to mono apps.

mono can't build Java code to CIL though, it doesn't understand the syntax. http://www.mono-project.com/Java.

The GPL is a software copyright license. Its about distributing software, and how to make that fair so that everyone can contribute tot he development/quality of the software, and to make sure that it can be used with no restrictions on its use. DRM is about content or hardware. Implement a DRM scheme in GPL'd code does not affect the distribution or use of the SOFTWARE. And that is where the problem is. If a hardware manufacturer modifies the kernel so that it does not run on any other hardware than they intend, the GPL still applies. Users are free to remove the DRM code, and use it on any hardware they wish. DRMed likewise does not interfere with the users ability to distribute or use the software. Users are still free to view any content they wish, and if they wish, remove the DRM code, and have less functional software. There is an existing president for this in the GPL2 Code that is run by a GPL interpreter such as python, does not have to be license with the GPL. This is because the interpreted code is DATA, and does not in any way linked to the interpreter, or borrow any code. Here is an example from mono http://www.mono-project.com/FAQ:_Licensing. Using the GPL to limit what a programmer can implement inherently limits a users freedom. Why should a user not have the right to view DRMed content or hardware via GPLed software. Since, it is the content/hardware providers liming the content/hardware, not the software.

Writing the client in C# also means it's not portable to game consoles or non-x86 embedded devices that mostly run Linux, so they're on a dead end.

THere's Mono for Linux. And sometimes your employer tells you they want you to use a certain framework.

Miguel, the link under your nickname is out of date.. I was curious about it.

I found this http://www.mono-project.com/FAQ:_Licensing#Patents which appears to be correct.

Cheers

build a small desktop app... should probably use VB (He won't be able to build a gui faster with any other tool).

distributed client/server app involving tens of thousands of classes coded by dozens of people, reliable object transfer/messaging, reliable easy access to various forms of communications (Sockets, etc), the ability to run on Unix... your only rational choice is Java.

The Mono Project (open-source .NET, works on most operating systems) can use ASP.NET pages. You can either use a plug-in for Apache, or XPS, a "lightweight and simple webserver written in C#."

The Mono Project (open-source .NET, works on most operating systems) can use ASP.NET pages. You can either use a plug-in for Apache, or XPS, a "lightweight and simple webserver written in C#."

The Mono Project (open-source .NET, works on most operating systems) can use ASP.NET pages. You can either use a plug-in for Apache, or XPS, a "lightweight and simple webserver written in C#."

http://www.mono-project.com/FAQ:_Licensing

The patent issues are not with the Language itself as stated in the FAQ.

__quote__
The controversial elements are the ASP.NET, ADO.NET and Windows.Forms subsets. Those are convenient for people who need full compatibility with the Windows platform, but are not required for the open source Mono platform, nor integration with today's Mono's rich support of Linux.
__quote__

That is what is up for PATENT issues. Which basically means that at any time the ASP.Net, ADO.NET, and Windows.Forms could be ripped out.

Mono is not trying to create a complete 100% Microsoft.Net, thus working with VisualStudio.Net and saying Mono can be used to put everything on Linux is NOT a good statement. Try it. Use System.Data.SqlClient or even System.Data.Mysql namespace, and take the exe and put it on your linux box and see if it works.

With Java, it works on both systems after "one" compile with no changes. I have tried it. Not so with Mono and Microsoft.Net, and the Patent stuff hasn't even come up yet. Hell, even with a compile of the code on Linux, I ran into issues with Mysql.

There are also potential patent issues (I can't believe that there would be _no_ patents that cover C#.)

Nah, just some platform for http://www.mono-project.com/

There's quite a bit of OSS .NET stuff out there, but of course it's tied only to Windows.

Have you seen Mono, a port of .net to Linux?

I think MS is getting better these days. They released the .Net Framework source code (called ROTOR) under the same license (Shared Source). Though you can't use it commercially, it actually compiles on multiple platforms. Good for students and guys working on alternate implementations, though you cant lift code from it. They also started a new code sharing community called CodePlex.

Eventually they might open up a lot of platform code, maybe even Windows itself. I still remember BillG saying that way back in 2000, that they might someday. Among other things it will depend on the quality of source code, you really wouldn't want people to see all those //HACK-HACKs and //FIXME:BAD-BAD-WAAAH-WAAH code. The .Net codebase is awesome, so it was easier to open. (Not saying thats the only criteria).

Perhaps, with the new guys sitting on top, people like Ray Ozzie MS might change. Hopefully they "know" that openness is freedom, and freedom will last.

I searched for http://www.mono-project.com/ on http://www.ohloh.net/ and the only relevant hit I found was Qt#. Imagine that.

Not to start a flamewar but

You just did. It wouldn't hurt to do a little Google research, as most of the things you say are so untrue that I'd mod you -1 Flamebait/Astroturf if I had the points.

Does it even support winforms yet?

Yes.

.Net 2.0 is coming with VS.net 2005 and Mono has still not caught up with VS.net 2003.

Most of the 1.0 code is complete. 2.0 isn't complete, but what's implemented should work.

But cross platform it is not and its a MS technology just like win32 is, though you can have limited success with wine.

I'd hardly call 4210 applications "limited". Now, I have no clue how many of those work, or work well without tweaking, but between Wine and Cedega, I rarely run into legit apps that don't work. Of course, tools for pirating stuff like Daemon Tools causes problems...

But maybe try it before you knock it? Recent Wines are actually getting pretty damn good. It's amazing how often I'll just download some random free app off the Internet and have it work flawlessly.

More importantly, are you familiar with the history of Linux? Unix was as proprietary an OS as they come, yet they actually published APIs and stuck to them. The GNU people were essentially doing what the WineLib people are doing -- reimplementing the APIs. They weren't shooting for binary compatibility, but they wanted people to be able to take any Unix program and, with a minimum of tweaking, recompile it for the GNU system.

And really, you don't need 100% compatibility. Getting 99% compatibility probably means you get 99% of people able to switch to Linux, which means the 1% stuck on Windows are about as relevant as the 1% currently stuck on DOS.

Mono is even easier, because it was designed to be cross-platform. The actual, official Microsoft .NET code has been ported to Linux, so we know it can be done. And no sane opensource person is afraid of it because it's Microsoft's tech -- if it comes to that, we can always fork it. The fact that it was designed by an evil/incompetent corporation doesn't necessarily mean the tech was a bad idea. Think about it -- how relevant is the original AT&T Unix compared to Linux these days?

Just use Windows. If the server is cracked its the ISP's problem. Not yours if you outsource the server.

I wouldn't count on it. If the server is cracked, the "ISP" (hosting provider, most of them don't sell Internet access) certainly has a problem. But who's going to answer why you went with that provider?

Not to start a flamewar but

You just did. It wouldn't hurt to do a little Google research, as most of the things you say are so untrue that I'd mod you -1 Flamebait/Astroturf if I had the points.

Does it even support winforms yet?

Yes.

.Net 2.0 is coming with VS.net 2005 and Mono has still not caught up with VS.net 2003.

Most of the 1.0 code is complete. 2.0 isn't complete, but what's implemented should work.

But cross platform it is not and its a MS technology just like win32 is, though you can have limited success with wine.

I'd hardly call 4210 applications "limited". Now, I have no clue how many of those work, or work well without tweaking, but between Wine and Cedega, I rarely run into legit apps that don't work. Of course, tools for pirating stuff like Daemon Tools causes problems...

But maybe try it before you knock it? Recent Wines are actually getting pretty damn good. It's amazing how often I'll just download some random free app off the Internet and have it work flawlessly.

More importantly, are you familiar with the history of Linux? Unix was as proprietary an OS as they come, yet they actually published APIs and stuck to them. The GNU people were essentially doing what the WineLib people are doing -- reimplementing the APIs. They weren't shooting for binary compatibility, but they wanted people to be able to take any Unix program and, with a minimum of tweaking, recompile it for the GNU system.

And really, you don't need 100% compatibility. Getting 99% compatibility probably means you get 99% of people able to switch to Linux, which means the 1% stuck on Windows are about as relevant as the 1% currently stuck on DOS.

Mono is even easier, because it was designed to be cross-platform. The actual, official Microsoft .NET code has been ported to Linux, so we know it can be done. And no sane opensource person is afraid of it because it's Microsoft's tech -- if it comes to that, we can always fork it. The fact that it was designed by an evil/incompetent corporation doesn't necessarily mean the tech was a bad idea. Think about it -- how relevant is the original AT&T Unix compared to Linux these days?

Just use Windows. If the server is cracked its the ISP's problem. Not yours if you outsource the server.

I wouldn't count on it. If the server is cracked, the "ISP" (hosting provider, most of them don't sell Internet access) certainly has a problem. But who's going to answer why you went with that provider?

Not to start a flamewar but

You just did. It wouldn't hurt to do a little Google research, as most of the things you say are so untrue that I'd mod you -1 Flamebait/Astroturf if I had the points.

Does it even support winforms yet?

Yes.

.Net 2.0 is coming with VS.net 2005 and Mono has still not caught up with VS.net 2003.

Most of the 1.0 code is complete. 2.0 isn't complete, but what's implemented should work.

But cross platform it is not and its a MS technology just like win32 is, though you can have limited success with wine.

I'd hardly call 4210 applications "limited". Now, I have no clue how many of those work, or work well without tweaking, but between Wine and Cedega, I rarely run into legit apps that don't work. Of course, tools for pirating stuff like Daemon Tools causes problems...

But maybe try it before you knock it? Recent Wines are actually getting pretty damn good. It's amazing how often I'll just download some random free app off the Internet and have it work flawlessly.

More importantly, are you familiar with the history of Linux? Unix was as proprietary an OS as they come, yet they actually published APIs and stuck to them. The GNU people were essentially doing what the WineLib people are doing -- reimplementing the APIs. They weren't shooting for binary compatibility, but they wanted people to be able to take any Unix program and, with a minimum of tweaking, recompile it for the GNU system.

And really, you don't need 100% compatibility. Getting 99% compatibility probably means you get 99% of people able to switch to Linux, which means the 1% stuck on Windows are about as relevant as the 1% currently stuck on DOS.

Mono is even easier, because it was designed to be cross-platform. The actual, official Microsoft .NET code has been ported to Linux, so we know it can be done. And no sane opensource person is afraid of it because it's Microsoft's tech -- if it comes to that, we can always fork it. The fact that it was designed by an evil/incompetent corporation doesn't necessarily mean the tech was a bad idea. Think about it -- how relevant is the original AT&T Unix compared to Linux these days?

Just use Windows. If the server is cracked its the ISP's problem. Not yours if you outsource the server.

I wouldn't count on it. If the server is cracked, the "ISP" (hosting provider, most of them don't sell Internet access) certainly has a problem. But who's going to answer why you went with that provider?