How to install MSBuild on OS X and Linux?

Question

I'm looking to install MSBuild on my Linux laptop so I can build a C# OSS project of mine. How exactly would I go about doing this? I've come across a few guides such as this which suggest installing the MSBuild NuGet package, but it doesn't seem official or actively maintained.

Is there an official package source I can install MSBuild from?

Solution

Yes, there is such a package hosted by the CoreFX team as a MyGet feed. To install, run this at a terminal:

#!/bin/sh

packageid="Microsoft.Build.Mono.Debug"
version="14.1.0.0-prerelease" # update as needed

mono path/to/nuget.exe install $packageid -Version \
    $version -Source "https://www.myget.org/F/dotnet-buildtools/"

# run MSBuild
mono $packageid.$version/lib/MSBuild.exe Foo.sln

Technically this should be used only for building the .NET Core repos, but I'll take it as an alternative to an unofficial publisher.

Source.

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EDIT: Note that this will only work if your version of Mono is 4.0.1 or above.

Comments

[ashes999]

How do I know what the latest available (or stable) version of this package is? It's not listed on NuGet.org

[Kaushal28]

I'm getting this exception while running the first command on centOS 7: System.AggregateException: One or more errors occurred. (Could not load file or assembly 'WindowsBase, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies.) (Could not load file or assembly 'WindowsBase, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies.) ---> System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'WindowsBase, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies.