As a student, you should look into this program: https://www.dreamspark.com/ https://www.dreamspark.com/ There are some great cross-platform developments in th

As a student, you should look into this program: https://www.dreamspark.com/ https://www.dreamspark.com/ There are some great cross-platform developments in the pipeline that should allow you to have a native Linux experience approaching VS the future, but you really should use VS if you want the best experience with C#/.NET today. DreamSpark will give you access to free licenses of Windows and VS (and other Microsoft software), that you can install in a free VM host like VirtualBox, so don't let the perceived costs of using VS deter you. I can't remember if DreamSpark comes with any Azure credits. If it does come with the $150/mo credit that most MSDN subscriptions do, you can use that to run a Windows/VS VM in Azure and just RDP to that. They have templates prebuilt so you can spin up a new VM with Windows and Visual Studio already installed with one click. That's a great way to get up and running very quickly: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudioalm/archive/2014/06/04/visual-studio-14-ctp-now-available-in-the-virtual-machine-azure-gallery.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudioalm/archive/2014/06/04/v... My email's in my profile here. Feel free to get in touch if I can help with anything.