What the best setup latest Mono + MonoDevelop on Ubuntu 9.04?

Question

I start using Ubuntu 9.04 on my laptop. What I really want is to be able to write my C# projects on Ubuntu, including unit testing. Could anyone guide me how to setup it?

Answer 1

In addition to the basic packages Matthew suggested, you'll also want the monodevelop-nunit package, which allows you to run and debug unit tests from within the IDE. For the debugger, you'll want monodevelop-debugger-mdb. You probably also want monodevelop-versioncontrol for SVN support, mono-xsp2 for running ASP.NET apps, and monodoc-browser for the docs viewer.

Maybe you're best off just installing all of the packages 'suggested' by the MonoDevelop package -- I believe the Ubuntu package manager has a way to do this easily from its GUI.

Beware that Ubuntu splits up Mono into many, many small packages, so if something's missing, use the apt-file tool or similar to find which package you need to install.

Ubuntu doesn't have Mono 2.4 packages yet; if you require 100% up-to-date packages, your best bet is to use openSUSE. The only way to get 2.4 on Ubuntu right now is to build from source -- and if you decide to do that, please read How not to break Mono installations first.

Answer 2

You probably already updated to 10.04 in the meanwhile. For 10.04 (and 8.04) you can use the badgerports. I didn't try it (yet), but it looks reliable.

Answer 3

I would suggest using 2.4 as it has all the latest .net goodness.

There are two guides I would suggest using:

http://blog.ruski.co.za/page/Install-Mono-on-Ubuntu.aspx

http://www.centriment.com/2009/04/01/building-mono-24-from-source-on-ubuntu-810/

The latter lets you keep the mono install that comes with ubuntu so you can still install apps from synaptic. I would suggest using this. Both guides however are really clear about what is required to install it. It looks menacing at first but if you take a couple of hours to follow it then you will see it is actually quite easy.

Good luck