A few links FYI

[wossname]

Here's a few links for the inquisitive to get started with.

http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page - home page for the Mono system
http://www.tuxfiles.org/linuxhelp/vimcheat.html - a few useful VIM commands
http://www.freeos.com/guides/lsst/ - handy shell scripting hints and some general linux stuff

Mono is the open-source implementation of the .Net runtimes and JIT compiler. Basically it lets you run any .net application on linux without having to re-compile it! Awesome. Supports C# and recently, VB.

Vim is a syntax-coloring text editor and the weapon of choice for the discerning Linux coder. I highly recommend getting to grips with Vim, because it is a standard Linux tool and its extremely versatile.

[TomGibbons]

In addition to Woss's links, a really good VIM guide can be found here:
http://tnerual.eriogerg.free.fr/vimqrc.pdf
It's a PDF but it's worth it. I have it printed out and stuck on my board.

I'll come up with some more links later.

[litlewiki]

www.howtoforge.com and www.freeos.com provide handy Linux tuts and resources.

[Andy_P]

OK, first of all, please forgive my almost total ignorance of Linux...

Mono is the open-source implementation of the .Net runtimes and JIT compiler. Basically it lets you run any .net application on linux without having to re-compile it! Awesome. Supports C# and recently, VB.

Does this mean that a Linux equivalent to the .NET runtime is being used, that provides the same functionality? In other words, do you install a Linux version of dotnetfx.exe?

[sunburnt]

OK, first of all, please forgive my almost total ignorance of Linux...

Does this mean that a Linux equivalent to the .NET runtime is being used, that provides the same functionality? In other words, do you install a Linux version of dotnetfx.exe?

Yes. You can download and run a linux installer from the mono project website, which provides an implementation of the .NET Framework. Most Linux distributions, however, will have mono in their package repository, so installing it is as simple as double clicking on it in the package manager.

Once mono is installed, you can run .NET programs by typing "mono TheProgram.exe" or, if the system is configured for it, just double clicking the executable.

Of course, mono will not run all .NET applications -- applications which P/Invoke the Windows API will obviously have problems. Additionally, while mono is coming along quite nicely, it's not an entirely complete implementation, so some programs which make use of the latest and greatest .NET features will not run correctly. .NET 1.1 programs should be very well supported, .NET 2.0 still well supported, but less so than 1.1.

Edit: mono is also available for Windows, and can co-exist peacefully (or so I've heard) with Microsoft .NET. This lets you run programs that use Gtk# (which most programs targeted at mono/Linux will use) instead of System.Windows.Forms to create the user interface .

[wossname]

Thats pretty much right yeah.

If I was to write a C# app on my linux box (compiled with mono) and then emailed the EXE to you, then you could run it on your windows machine straight away.

[wossname]

I have plans to make a VBF-only tutorial for this exact process in the next week or so.

Stay tuned folks. Sunburnt, you up for a collaboration?

[Andy_P]

Thanks guys, very interesting.