Is the mono .NET project included in latest release of most popular linux distros?

Question

I'm wondering if mono.net is included in the default installation of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Fedora, and other popular distros?

If so, does anyone have a good reason why NOT to use it to develop a new GUI application targeted mainly for linux?

Answer 1

It is included in Fedora, Ubuntu, Mandriva, Debian and OpenSUSE.

The only major OS that does not include it is RHEL, but packages are available for it as a separate download.

Additionally, you can bundle Mono with your application into a single binary if you need to (not recommended, but always possible).

GUI-wise Mono supports the Windows.Forms API on Unix and MacOS, but if you want a more native experience you can use the Gtk# API (this provides a .NET API for the GNOME library stack) or you can use Qyoto if you want to integrate instead with the KDE APIs.

There are many best-of-breed GUI applications for Linux that have been developed with Gtk# and Mono, some of the most popular ones include Gnome-Do (A quick application launcher), the F-Spot photo management software, the Banshee and Muine media players and the MonoDevelop IDE.

Answer 2

I'm pretty sure it's default on Ubuntu. If it wasn't, I didn't notice installing it.

The package managers on modern distributions pull down dependencies automatically. There's no great impediment to using any strange platform on these distros.

That said, lots of Ubuntu apps are being written in Mono with GTK#. Most notably off the top of my head are Tomboy Notes and Gnome Do.