Running .Net applications on Linux with Mono

Mono is an open source project (sponsored by Novell) that allows you to run .Net applications on Linux (as well as Unix, Mac OS X, Solaris and even Windows). To obtain it, go to the Mono download page and find the version you need for your distro.

Once you’ve installed Mono, get one of your .Net programmers to create and compile a simple Microsoft Visual Studio C# console application. Just something easy, such as:

using System;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Hello World");
        }
    }
}

Transfer the compiled application from the Windows machine by using FTP or Samba, then log on to your Linux box and run the application:

$ ConsoleApplication1.exe Hello World

Surely it can’t be as simple as that? Amazingly, it is. If you don’t believe that it’s Mono that’s allowing you to do this, try
transferring the application to a Linux box that hasn’t got Mono installed. You’ll get a result something like:

$ ConsoleApplication1.exe
-bash: ./ConsoleApplication1.exe: cannot execute binary file


$ cd /usr/lib/mono
$ sudo ln -s 1.0 2.0

The application name ends in .exe because it has been compiled as a Windows application. Once you’ve got it on Linux you can of course call it whatever you want:

$ mv ConsoleApplication1.exe  HelloWorld
$ HelloWorld
Hello World

You’ve just seen just how easy is to use a Microsoft Visual Studio application on Linux. However, you’re also probably thinking that you have absolutely no intention of using Windows at all; your .Net programmers are just going to have to have to learn to program in something that runs solely on Linux. That’s a good idea — if you’ve got
the time for them to learn something new. If not, don’t despair. Mono comes with its own .Net compiler, mcs. To us it, paste the code for the ‘Hello World’ application above into a file, compile it (using mcs), then run the new application from the command line.

$ mcs -out:HelloWorld.exe Program.cs
$ HelloWorld.exe
Hello World

If you’ve still got that Windows machine fired up, you may find it interesting to transfer the newly compiled application to
it and running your app in Windows. You’ll find that you’ve created something on Linux that will also run on Windows.

Of course, by the time you’ve explained all this to your .Net programmers they’ll be up in arms. “How can you expect us to program without a pretty GUI?” they’ll cry.

“With Monodevelop,” you’ll say, referring to Mono’s integrated development environment (IDE). With Monodevelop your developers can happily work with Glade#, Gnome#, and GTK#, all within a .Net-type environment. Check the software’s download page for your distro’s version and any dependencies.

The developers should leave you in peace for a while, but they’ll be back. “Where’s the GUI designer?” they’ll ask. This is where you introduce them to building interfaces with Glade. When you start a new Monodevelop
Glade# application, use a file called gui.glade. You can edit this with Glade and then do the programming in Monodevelop. If your developers have any further questions, point them in the direction of the Mono GTK# Beginner’s Guide.

With your .Net programmers happily producing applications for Linux, you can turn your attention to ASP .Net for building Web applications. You’re going to need a Web server, which can be either Apache (with mod_mono installed) or Mono’s own Web server, XSP. Have a look at the Mono Handbook page for Web sites and Web services to find out how to set up the XSP server. On Debian, for example, its just a matter of installing the software:

sudo apt-get install mono-xsp

Then running it:

$ cd mono
$ xsp
xsp
Listening on port: 8080
Listening on address: 0.0.0.0
Root directory: /home/bainm/mono
Hit Return to stop the server.

XSP will run in the directory where you start it, will use this as its home directory, and will use port 8080 by default. If you don’t want to have to change into that directory every time you start the server, you can use its --root option. To change the port, use the --port option:

$ xsp --root ~/mono --port 8081

When you’ve got your server up and running, go to Mono’s Web Services
page, where you’ll find some good examples of the types of services that you can start running. However, if you’re desperate to see the server in action, go to the directory you’re running XSP from and cat the following into index.aspx:

<%@ Page Language="C#" %>
<html><body>
<%
    Response.Output.Write("Hello World!");
%>
</body> </html>

Now open up a Web browser and type in the URL of your host (plus
the port number) — e.g. http://hector:8080. Granted, this
isn’t the most exciting example in the world, but it proves that you can run ASP .Net on Linux. A quick search on Google will give you a host of other examples that you can use.

With Mono, Monodevelop, and XSP in place, you can throw away Microsoft Visual Studio and you can throw away Windows, and you don’t
have to throw away the valued experience of your .Net programmers.