How do I develop .NET apps on Ubuntu?

Question

at college we use Microsoft .NET for developing applications. I recently switched to Ubuntu and would like to know similar tools for making apps on/for ubuntu.

Solution 1

You can program in .NET on ubuntu too. Well, sort of. There is an open source implementation of the .NET platform available called MONO. MONO apps can run on Ubuntu/Linux, Windows and Mac OS. Look for MonoDevelop in Ubuntu Software Center. Learn more about Mono in Ubuntu.

Another option is Quickly. In my opinion Quickly is better for Ubuntu centric app development. You can code you app and release it to a PPA (launchpad-repository) in minutes. Quickly is also available from Ubuntu Software Center. Get started writing apps with Quickly.

Solution 2

Quickly can help you make cool apps using Python (pretty easy to learn and very popular) quickly!

Solution 3

The Vala language is a programming language very similar to C#. It is still very young, but already has a lot of bindings to existing libraries (for example, GTK). It compiles to native binaries, so your users don't need an additional runtime, as they would for .NET.

See an introduction to Vala for C# programmers.

Solution 4

I see no reason for all these suggestions that you switch application platforms/languages. Use what you're used to and you'll be more productive than having to spend time learning another language.

Monodevelop will give you a better experience of Mono development - its no Visual Studio, but its the best integrated IDE for mono you're gonna get on Ubuntu. Visual design of GTK forms and their controls is a big win (think Winforms but Linux style).

Solution 5

To develop apps specifically for Ubuntu, head to Ubuntu's developer website. Among other things you can:

• Make snaps
• Make apps with QML and HTML5
• Create scopes with JavaScript, C++ or Go

They have a framework called Quickly.

There are good references in the other answers to Qt and GTK. An interesting source for guidelines is Gnome's developers website.

The framework/IDE to use will depend on the language you use. You can use MS Visual Studio Code on Ubuntu.

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Comments

[Nathan Osman]

I would like to strongly urge you to consider learning another language like Python or C / C++. A large number (in fact, probably the majority) of applications in the repository are written in those languages.

[RAOF]

Although it'll be pretty easy to pick up another language it's certainly not necessary or particularly desirable (other than exposure to other programming styles).

[Mark K Cowan]

If you want to use Linux day-to-day but want to develop C# without the compatibility issues of Mono, consider having a Windows virtual machine in VirtualBox.

[Nathan Osman]

+1 for answering the question. (Personally I hate mono, but oh well.)

[McDowell]

your mono-project.com link points to the Quickly URL

[RAOF]

You can use the CLI (.NET) languages and standard libraries just fine - the versions of mono in recent Ubuntu releases support C# 3.0 and (most of) .NET 3.5. You'll want to learn the GTK# UI library, though. System.Winforms & WPF applications will not look native, and WPF is also not fully implemented.

[codeape]

+1 for suggesting Python/Quickly. I am a professional Python programmer, and I use Ubuntu on my computer. Ubuntu (and Linux in general) is great for doing Python development.

[trampster]

it you are targeting ubuntu then mono is preinstalled installed and so requires no additional runtime.

[Evan Plaice]

You'll want to pick up the MonoDevelop IDE. Aside from GUI development (*nix uses GTK# for drag-drop vs Winforms/WPF on windows) development in Ubuntu isn't a whole lot different than development in windows.

[Mark B]

It looks like that link to Vala for C# doesn't work. Try this one instead, live.gnome.org/Vala/ValaForCSharpProgrammers. There's also one for Java programmers, live.gnome.org/Vala/ValaForJavaProgrammers.

[Mark]

thanks Mark, seems like they have restructured their wiki, I corrected the link in the Answer.

[dv3500ea]

Qt works on GNOME

[user]

@dv3500ea: You didn't get it. QT is used to develop KDE applications, that doesn't mean that applications built by QT won't run on GNOME. The same way GTK applications will run on KDE. But you can't use GTK to build KDE applications

[dv3500ea]

It's not 'only for KDE platform' though.

[Owais Lone]

QT is not used to build KDE apps. QT is used to build GUIs. KDE uses QT to build it's apps. QT can be used to build GTK apps too.

[user]

I think i am totally lost here. Marked as community wiki. Thanks for your support and patience.

[Chinmaya B]

@Owais Lone - The links provided in answer are not working please try to renew them or add a substitute

[Anwar]

The bounty I've started is specifically about dotnet. The answer should very easy. You can even find the relevant updated piece from microsoft website

[Ramon Suarez]

@Anwar I got confused with the description. It was not clear for me if the idea was to do .Net or develop like with .Net. I answered to the second interpretation

[Anwar]

Please add more details to that part of the answer. Should include basic installation process

[Ramon Suarez]

@Anwar Sorry, I don't understand your comment.

[Anwar]

Upvoted. Your MS link has essentially everything I wanted to be included. Can you put the important parts of the link in to the answer?

[Edward Chan JW]

Sure, Thanks for the upvoted. Been getting treated really nice here, for second Microsoft Question. As long as Microsoft try to be neutral in their Open Source project, I think Unix should welcome them as well, as Friends as the same with Bash on Windows 10.