I’m currently trying out the latest Ubuntu pre-release, 12.04 (Precise Pangolin), and noticed Ubuntu removed support for Mono by default in this release. Prior to 12.04, Ubuntu included a default installation of the Mono Project. However, getting Mono back onto Ubuntu is very easy.
- Open up the Ubuntu Software Center (located on the Launcher)
- Select Developer Tools from the left navigation pane in USC.
- Select Mono/CLI option.
- Choose from one of the Mono/CLI developer tools installs and click Install (I recommend choosing complete Mono runtime, development tools, and all libraries).
- Enter in your administrative credentials if prompted and click Authenticate to continue.
- Done. Enjoy developing/running all your .NET applications.
For those unfamiliar, the Mono Project allows applications targeting the Common Language Runtime (CLR, .NET applications) to run on multiple platforms, such as Mac OSX, *nix, and Solaris. The Mono Project also offers a free Integrated Development Environment for developers to use to develop their CLR applications on these different platforms. Overall, I’ve been very impressed with the project and it seems to be a huge success in the overall community. It currently supports up to .NET Framework 4.0 and is based on the ECMA/ISO standardizations of the CLR.
The Mono project was a great addition to the software suite included in a default installation of Ubuntu. It allowed more scalability of the different types of applications which could run on Ubuntu, but further, it allowed users to test/run .NET applications in a Linux environment. I’m somewhat disappointed the team decided to remove this functionality, but at least they made it very easy to install.
I may write up a separate post about developing and running .NET applications using the Mono project.
WinQuire 