MIgration to Linux for a .NET programmer, possible?

[emperon]

Thank you all for your help!
Ubuntu's support is really exceptional. I wonder why some people are still using Windows.

Of course I AM going to learn other programming languages like Python, PHP and so on and I won't be limiting myself to Microsoft. But, at the moment, I am in the middle of a Microsoft certification and have already passed some exams. Also, I have been writing code for .NET for 5 years now. And now that I see .NET is not limited to Windows anymore, why should I leave it in this stage?

But there remain a few questions for me, like: How is MONO created? Using open-source part of the .NET? Despite some .NET classes are not open-source, how do they create all of them? Can I use .NET DLLs created in Windows in Linux(MONO)? Will ASP.NET websites created in Linux run faster than/slower than/equal to Windows?

Thanks.

Mono project first started as an cross platform C# compiler. As you know C# does not belong to MS althought it is created by MS. C# is an ECMA standard language. So by using it you have no royality against MS.

Technically Mono was created by rewriting entire .net stack in a cross platform way. There is no open source part of .net. (Although you can reverse engineer it)

You can use .NET DLL's created in windows on linux with mono and vice versa without recompiling as long as your dll do not use Platform specific code (like p/invoke).

For the web site s well that depends. You usually run mono apache + mod_mono. On general Mono Runtime is slightly slower than .net (about 10% - 20%). But I am not aware of the difference in mod_mono and IIS.

In addition to that I am doing professional web applications with C#/Mono on linux along with NHibernate, my applications become both platform independent and database independent.

Finally the only patented parts of mono are Windows Forms, ASP.NET and ADO.NET. As long as you don't use these components technically you are not locked in in MS tech.

[lordfkiller]

Sounds like I am not going to need Windows anymore

You said the runtime is slightly slower. I think it IS possible to use a Windows server (and Microsoft CLR) as production server, though MONO is used to create the application, isn't it?

[Coyote21]

yes, it should work, since mono supports most (or even all the features of .NET), and the code is compiled to run in through the interpreter and the bytecode is freely available as an ECMA specification. So, yes it should work. (Note: MONO also exists as an Windows version, and with some configurations Visual Studio .NET can also use MONO in the backend)

[lordfkiller]

Oh I almost forgot! What about SQL Server? I can use another DBMS for development, but the server supports only Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

[emperon]

Mono Runs fine with SQL Server, MySQL and PostgreSQL

of course your code won't be database independant as usual.

IF you want your application to be database independent then you should consider using NHibernate framework

[lordfkiller]

I'm aware that MONO supports SQL Server(has the providers), but I don't think I can have a local SQL Server DB server on linux. Also, I don't want my application to be database independant, I need only SQL Server.

So, if there is a way to have a local SQL Server installed on Linux, then this is the best solution for me. If not, then if there is a BDMS I can use for development and later use SQL Server for production without any changes, it is okay. And finallty, if neither of them is possible, I'll have to use a remote SQL Server for development.

Thanks.

[emperon]

I don't think you can run MSSQL on linux. Nor I am aware any db using same engine.

You can install windows on virtualbox and then install mssql there. I know it's not neat but that's the only thing I can think of if you need mssql locally

[lordfkiller]

What is virtual box?

[emperon]

What is virtual box?

It's a virtual machine that enables you to run any operating system on your linux. You can think of it like windows running within linux . For further details you may want to google it

[pmasiar]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine