11 ms·

Mono was, but newer versions of .NET run on Linux and Mac. You can install at the link below, and then making a project is just `dotnet new console` and run wi

Mono was, but newer versions of .NET run on Linux and Mac. You can install at the link below, and then making a project is just `dotnet new console` and run with `dotnet run` https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/install/linux https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/install/linux

simion314 2y ago
Mono implemented the GUI stuff like Windows Forms, do the latest windows cross platform stuff support that? Can you run .Net GUI windows program on linux without Mono but using the latest .Net thing ? I know it was not possible in the past.
- deaddodo 2y ago
  .net Core doesn't supply WinForms, but WPF is the far more common paradigm for Windows apps now. WPF is supported by projects like Avalonia on Linux. There are also a few other major alternative UI toolkits, more commonly used by cross-platform (vs Windows-exclusive) developers.
  - Kwpolska 2y ago
    .NET Core does support Windows Forms just fine, but it’s only available on Windows.
    - deaddodo 2y ago
      [flagged]
- pionar 2y ago
  You can use third party libs like Avalonia[1] or Uno[2] [1] https://avaloniaui.net/ https://avaloniaui.net/ [2] https://platform.uno/ https://platform.uno/
  - simion314 2y ago
    Sure, nobody wants to write Winforms new applications today My point is about running existing applications on Linux, there are still issues with running .Net GUI stuff under wine and Mono was not a perfect implementation. I read in other comments that the newer .Net cross platform stuff is not a replacement for Mono for running this old applications. (nobody will rewrite them to use the current GUI stuff from MS since are old apps)
    - moron4hire 2y ago
      No, Microsoft's .NET only supports WinForms on Windows. They do have an official cross platform GUI toolkit in MAUI, but it strangely does not support Linux.
      - runevault 2y ago
        Last I knew it is also considered pretty lackluster. Every time I read up on it it feels like, even beyond the lack of Linux support people just don't care for it. If I was building a cross platform native app with .NET I'd probably use Avalonia right now.
        moomin 2y ago
        Yeah, the took an age delivering it, then it came out and most of the early reports were “It’s still not ready.” and then I think Microsoft just gave up. I think not supporting Linux was a tactical error, though. Some people will put up with a lot for Linux GUI support, and some of those people are the types who can resolve problems with your half-baked GUzi framework.
        runevault 2y ago
        Oh yeah I agree lack of Linux support is a major issue. Just even without it there are so many other issues I dunno that Linux support helps much.
- eppp 2y ago
  No, they pretty much gave up on winforms when .net core morphed into "the" .net that is cross platform. There are some nice crossplatform gui libs now though.
  - LAC-Tech 2y ago
    What are the ones to use in 2024? I used to code informs, it was a great improvement on its successors.
  - starik36 2y ago
    Not really. Winforms have been updated to .net core. And a bunch of handy features to modernize it have been added. I'd say it's the simplest and quickest way to go if you need to bang out a quickie app for Windows only. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/desktop/winforms/?view=netdesktop-8.0 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/desktop/winforms/?v...
    - glzone1 2y ago
      If true this would be huge. I got burned on the whole silverlight, Universal Windows Platform, WPF etc. All these new and improved solutions had all sorts of issues, no designer, no or weaker accessibility stories, bloated, slow etc etc. C# + Winforms would be appealing. Some of the performance with larger datasets in the new solutions (tables etc) was just surprising. I really feel like Microsoft got so distracted chasing phones, tables, touch etc they forget just basic line of business application development which they could and should have owned.
- neonsunset 2y ago
  You are expected to use Avalonia or Uno for multi-platform targeting or Gir.Core (GTK4) or one of the many other binding libraries for Linux-specific GUI. Also very easy to throw something together on top of SDL2 with Silk.NET. Practically speaking it is in a much better place than many languages considered by parts of Linux community to be more """linux-oriented""".
  - simion314 2y ago
    My personal use case is running old GUI apps, I am not planning on writing GUI apps with .Net , MS had the opportunity to open source .Net/Silverlight and make money from tools but they bet on Windows and today most apps are node and javascript, a much inferior platform but MS open things up too late.
- toyg 2y ago
  The whole point of .NET-Core was to remove all the (largely desktop-oriented) platform-specific dependencies that tied it to Windows, so you could run server-oriented .net programs on Linux. So no, afaik you can't simply run GUI apps built with .Net on Linux desktops - that's the reason Mono wasn't simply killed, because it covers that niche (which wouldn't even exist, were it not for Mono/Xamarin's efforts back then. But I digress...). Nowadays there are a few other attempts at providing that UI layer.
  - dark-star 2y ago
    .net Core still has Windows Forms thoguh? At least I (for kicks) migrated one of my old .net 4.something projects to .net core and it still works and shows the classic Windows Forms GUI. It's (of course) not portable
    - snuxoll 2y ago
      .Net Core on Windows has support for loading assemblies that reference COM interfaces and the win32 API, along with other things that aren’t supported elsewhere like C++/CLI. That’s why loading System.Windows.Forms still works, it’s not part of .Net 5+, but it can still load the assemblies on Windows (they still use GDI, etc under the hood).
      - Kwpolska 2y ago
        System.Windows.Forms _is_ part of .NET 5+ — but only available on Windows.
- qingcharles 2y ago
  I think this is what you need now... https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/apps/maui https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/apps/maui "Build native, cross-platform desktop and mobile apps all in one framework." I know my buddy uses it to write Android apps on his Mac that interface to an ASP.NET Core web site.
  - pests 2y ago
    I don't think that supports Linux tho
    - qingcharles 2y ago
      I had to check; you're right, no official support for Linux. Windows, macOS, iOS, Android. You can kludge Linux in with hacks.
  - aversis_ 2y ago
    Isn't it just another Xamarin rebrand?
Kye 2y ago
For historical context: this was before the conclusion of the antitrust case that led Microsoft to start softening its stance toward open source. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor.... This was the same year Antitrust came out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_(film) Any support for open source or cross-platform stuff was a bulwark against claims of monopoly abuse, but none of it worked well enough to be a true replacement. Mono worked for some purposes, but it was far from the first party support cross-platform .NET gets today. Nowadays it sounds like .NET Core + third-party GUI libraries is the way to go.
- paranoidrobot 2y ago
  > Nowadays it sounds like .NET Core + third-party GUI libraries is the way to go. For reference for those unfamiliar with the terms: .NET Core was the name given to the cross-platform fork of the .NET runtime. It was forked out of .NET 4.x and dropped support for a lot of things in the first versions. It ran on various distributions of Linux and MacOS. At the same time there were forks of other libraries/frameworks in the .NET ecosystem to have 'Core' variants. Often these were dropping support for legacy parts of their code so that they could run on Core. Later versions of .NET Core brought over support for a many of the things that had been dropped. .NET Core and .NET had stand-alone versions until .NET Core was renamed to . NET and became .NET 5. So, if you want to do the most modern cross-platform C# you would use .NET 9.
  - aspeckt112 2y ago
    Good write up that wonderfully encapsulates how stupid Microsoft’s naming is - you didn’t even mention .NET standard. I love .NET. It’s a great stack, especially for backend web apps. Blazor is a great SPA framework too. But I loathe how Microsoft continue to handle just about everything that isn’t the framework and C# / F#. It’s laughable.
    - paranoidrobot 2y ago
      Well, to be fair .NET Standard wasn't a framework, it was a standards/compatibility label and compilation target. .NET Standard includes various versions of things that MS doesn't even touch. I stopped doing .NET stuff before .NET 5 so I'm not hugely up to date with the latest shenanigans.
pantalaimon 2y ago
Is there a way to build a GUI app with .NET on Linux? Will it be cross-platform?
- sasakrsmanovic2 2y ago
  Yes. https://platform.uno/uno-platform-for-linux/ https://platform.uno/uno-platform-for-linux/
- cultofmetatron 2y ago
  > Is there a way to build a GUI app with .NET on Linux? yes https://avaloniaui.net/ https://avaloniaui.net/
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- fsckboy 2y ago
  (i hardly know what i'm talking about so somebody else may have a better idea, but i'm here now so) mingw is a GNU's header/library environment (tools too maybe?) to create windows compatible applications. So I'd look into searching mingw .net and/or mingw mono. also, ask your favorite AI, they're good at this type of question so long as it's not up to the minute news
- aspeckt112 2y ago
  Avalonia. The UI isn't native, is a Skia canvass with drawn controls. But it'll work on basically every OS and it's pretty good. Also, you're not writing JavaScript, so that's a win any day in my book.
  - mixmastamyk 2y ago
    Sounds like Flutter?
    - register 2y ago
Buttons840 2y ago
Is .NET open-source? Will I find it in an open-source repository?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- sva_ 2y ago
  Seems so https://github.com/dotnet/dotnet https://github.com/dotnet/dotnet
  - hexxington 2y ago
    This is the "virtual monorepo", if you want to clone one repo and build the entire SDK product then this is the correct thing to checkout - but development work right now still happens in the separate project repos, of which there are ~20
- NlightNFotis 2y ago
  Yes. https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/ https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- WorldMaker 2y ago
  Also, the main languages: https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn

simion314 2y ago

Mono implemented the GUI stuff like Windows Forms, do the latest windows cross platform stuff support that? Can you run .Net GUI windows program on linux without Mono but using the latest .Net thing ? I know it was not possible in the past.

deaddodo 2y ago
.net Core doesn't supply WinForms, but WPF is the far more common paradigm for Windows apps now. WPF is supported by projects like Avalonia on Linux. There are also a few other major alternative UI toolkits, more commonly used by cross-platform (vs Windows-exclusive) developers.
- Kwpolska 2y ago
  .NET Core does support Windows Forms just fine, but it’s only available on Windows.
  - deaddodo 2y ago
    [flagged]
pionar 2y ago
You can use third party libs like Avalonia[1] or Uno[2] [1] https://avaloniaui.net/ https://avaloniaui.net/ [2] https://platform.uno/ https://platform.uno/
- simion314 2y ago
  Sure, nobody wants to write Winforms new applications today My point is about running existing applications on Linux, there are still issues with running .Net GUI stuff under wine and Mono was not a perfect implementation. I read in other comments that the newer .Net cross platform stuff is not a replacement for Mono for running this old applications. (nobody will rewrite them to use the current GUI stuff from MS since are old apps)
  - moron4hire 2y ago
    No, Microsoft's .NET only supports WinForms on Windows. They do have an official cross platform GUI toolkit in MAUI, but it strangely does not support Linux.
    - runevault 2y ago
      Last I knew it is also considered pretty lackluster. Every time I read up on it it feels like, even beyond the lack of Linux support people just don't care for it. If I was building a cross platform native app with .NET I'd probably use Avalonia right now.
      - moomin 2y ago
        Yeah, the took an age delivering it, then it came out and most of the early reports were “It’s still not ready.” and then I think Microsoft just gave up. I think not supporting Linux was a tactical error, though. Some people will put up with a lot for Linux GUI support, and some of those people are the types who can resolve problems with your half-baked GUzi framework.
        runevault 2y ago
        Oh yeah I agree lack of Linux support is a major issue. Just even without it there are so many other issues I dunno that Linux support helps much.
eppp 2y ago
No, they pretty much gave up on winforms when .net core morphed into "the" .net that is cross platform. There are some nice crossplatform gui libs now though.
- LAC-Tech 2y ago
  What are the ones to use in 2024? I used to code informs, it was a great improvement on its successors.
- starik36 2y ago
  Not really. Winforms have been updated to .net core. And a bunch of handy features to modernize it have been added. I'd say it's the simplest and quickest way to go if you need to bang out a quickie app for Windows only. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/desktop/winforms/?view=netdesktop-8.0 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/desktop/winforms/?v...
  - glzone1 2y ago
    If true this would be huge. I got burned on the whole silverlight, Universal Windows Platform, WPF etc. All these new and improved solutions had all sorts of issues, no designer, no or weaker accessibility stories, bloated, slow etc etc. C# + Winforms would be appealing. Some of the performance with larger datasets in the new solutions (tables etc) was just surprising. I really feel like Microsoft got so distracted chasing phones, tables, touch etc they forget just basic line of business application development which they could and should have owned.
neonsunset 2y ago
You are expected to use Avalonia or Uno for multi-platform targeting or Gir.Core (GTK4) or one of the many other binding libraries for Linux-specific GUI. Also very easy to throw something together on top of SDL2 with Silk.NET. Practically speaking it is in a much better place than many languages considered by parts of Linux community to be more """linux-oriented""".
- simion314 2y ago
  My personal use case is running old GUI apps, I am not planning on writing GUI apps with .Net , MS had the opportunity to open source .Net/Silverlight and make money from tools but they bet on Windows and today most apps are node and javascript, a much inferior platform but MS open things up too late.
toyg 2y ago
The whole point of .NET-Core was to remove all the (largely desktop-oriented) platform-specific dependencies that tied it to Windows, so you could run server-oriented .net programs on Linux. So no, afaik you can't simply run GUI apps built with .Net on Linux desktops - that's the reason Mono wasn't simply killed, because it covers that niche (which wouldn't even exist, were it not for Mono/Xamarin's efforts back then. But I digress...). Nowadays there are a few other attempts at providing that UI layer.
- dark-star 2y ago
  .net Core still has Windows Forms thoguh? At least I (for kicks) migrated one of my old .net 4.something projects to .net core and it still works and shows the classic Windows Forms GUI. It's (of course) not portable
  - snuxoll 2y ago
    .Net Core on Windows has support for loading assemblies that reference COM interfaces and the win32 API, along with other things that aren’t supported elsewhere like C++/CLI. That’s why loading System.Windows.Forms still works, it’s not part of .Net 5+, but it can still load the assemblies on Windows (they still use GDI, etc under the hood).
    - Kwpolska 2y ago
      System.Windows.Forms _is_ part of .NET 5+ — but only available on Windows.
qingcharles 2y ago
I think this is what you need now... https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/apps/maui https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/apps/maui "Build native, cross-platform desktop and mobile apps all in one framework." I know my buddy uses it to write Android apps on his Mac that interface to an ASP.NET Core web site.
- pests 2y ago
  I don't think that supports Linux tho
  - qingcharles 2y ago
    I had to check; you're right, no official support for Linux. Windows, macOS, iOS, Android. You can kludge Linux in with hacks.
- aversis_ 2y ago
  Isn't it just another Xamarin rebrand?

Kye 2y ago

For historical context: this was before the conclusion of the antitrust case that led Microsoft to start softening its stance toward open source. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor.... This was the same year Antitrust came out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_(film) Any support for open source or cross-platform stuff was a bulwark against claims of monopoly abuse, but none of it worked well enough to be a true replacement. Mono worked for some purposes, but it was far from the first party support cross-platform .NET gets today. Nowadays it sounds like .NET Core + third-party GUI libraries is the way to go.

paranoidrobot 2y ago
> Nowadays it sounds like .NET Core + third-party GUI libraries is the way to go. For reference for those unfamiliar with the terms: .NET Core was the name given to the cross-platform fork of the .NET runtime. It was forked out of .NET 4.x and dropped support for a lot of things in the first versions. It ran on various distributions of Linux and MacOS. At the same time there were forks of other libraries/frameworks in the .NET ecosystem to have 'Core' variants. Often these were dropping support for legacy parts of their code so that they could run on Core. Later versions of .NET Core brought over support for a many of the things that had been dropped. .NET Core and .NET had stand-alone versions until .NET Core was renamed to . NET and became .NET 5. So, if you want to do the most modern cross-platform C# you would use .NET 9.
- aspeckt112 2y ago
  Good write up that wonderfully encapsulates how stupid Microsoft’s naming is - you didn’t even mention .NET standard. I love .NET. It’s a great stack, especially for backend web apps. Blazor is a great SPA framework too. But I loathe how Microsoft continue to handle just about everything that isn’t the framework and C# / F#. It’s laughable.
  - paranoidrobot 2y ago
    Well, to be fair .NET Standard wasn't a framework, it was a standards/compatibility label and compilation target. .NET Standard includes various versions of things that MS doesn't even touch. I stopped doing .NET stuff before .NET 5 so I'm not hugely up to date with the latest shenanigans.

pantalaimon 2y ago

Is there a way to build a GUI app with .NET on Linux? Will it be cross-platform?

sasakrsmanovic2 2y ago
Yes. https://platform.uno/uno-platform-for-linux/ https://platform.uno/uno-platform-for-linux/
cultofmetatron 2y ago
> Is there a way to build a GUI app with .NET on Linux? yes https://avaloniaui.net/ https://avaloniaui.net/
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
fsckboy 2y ago
(i hardly know what i'm talking about so somebody else may have a better idea, but i'm here now so) mingw is a GNU's header/library environment (tools too maybe?) to create windows compatible applications. So I'd look into searching mingw .net and/or mingw mono. also, ask your favorite AI, they're good at this type of question so long as it's not up to the minute news
aspeckt112 2y ago
Avalonia. The UI isn't native, is a Skia canvass with drawn controls. But it'll work on basically every OS and it's pretty good. Also, you're not writing JavaScript, so that's a win any day in my book.
- mixmastamyk 2y ago
  Sounds like Flutter?
  - register 2y ago

Buttons840 2y ago

Is .NET open-source? Will I find it in an open-source repository?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
sva_ 2y ago
Seems so https://github.com/dotnet/dotnet https://github.com/dotnet/dotnet
- hexxington 2y ago
  This is the "virtual monorepo", if you want to clone one repo and build the entire SDK product then this is the correct thing to checkout - but development work right now still happens in the separate project repos, of which there are ~20
NlightNFotis 2y ago
Yes. https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/ https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
WorldMaker 2y ago
Also, the main languages: https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn