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I have more than 6 years of experience with .Net (C#/ASP.NET) and Visual Studio. But recently I'm tempted to switch to Linux/Mono. It comes up with some questions:

  1. Can I run my old Visual Studio projects and source codes in Mono correctly?

  2. My clients use IIS for ASP.NET and MS Windows for Winform and Console projects. Does my migration affect them? In other words does my Mono projects runs in Windows/IIS without any change or problem?

  3. Does Mono is dependable considering recent changes of Mono, Novell, Xamarin and Attachme?

  4. Can I continue using my favorite open source and none open source projects like NHibernate, Castle, Cuyahoga, log4net, Microsoft Enterprise Library and DNN?

  5. Can I host Mono ASP.NET web projects in Apache without any problem?

  6. Can I use my skills in ASP.NET webforms and MVC in Mono exactly?

Afshar Mohebi
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    Maybe... I would bet the answer is no but I am sure that some Mono guy will argue that. If you are seriously considering you should run some tests and try it out. That should be a better guide for you than random opinions off of the internent. Because the one who tell you no problem it will be easy will not be there doing it for you when you run into a snag. – SoylentGray Jul 26 '11 at 18:22
  • Just a FYI, I wrote a cool ASP.Net application with C# using Mono and deployed it on an Ubuntu Server running Apache with no "big" problems. – AngryBird Jul 26 '11 at 18:37
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    A very comprehensive answer to this question is available here: [Mono is frequently used to say "Yes, .NET is cross-platform". How valid is that claim?](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/20275/mono-is-frequently-used-to-say-yes-net-is-cross-platform-how-valid-is-that-c) – Robert Harvey Jul 26 '11 at 18:42

3 Answers3

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Can I run my old Visual Studio projects and source codes in Mono correctly?

For the most part. There's some magic that you can do the mono compiler won't handle. Most people don't do that though. MonoDevelop will open up VS solution and project files normally without a hitch.

My clients use IIS for ASP.NET and MS Windows for Winform and Console projects. Does my migration affect them? In other words does my Mono projects runs in Windows/IIS without any change or problem?

You will want to test everything before deploying to production, but normally this isn't a case. Any problems will be edge cases.

Does Mono is dependable considering recent changes of Mono, Novell, Xamarin and Attachme?

Xamarin has aquired the rights and licenses to everything mono related from Attachmate. This itself is not an issue. Xamarin is putting resources forward to make MonoDevelop a better product. I spend the past weekend with many members of the mono team, and they are looking to continue the product line; however, a stronger focus will be with the mobile things. Server side stuff won't be ignored but I wouldn't expect the fastest adoption of new stuff.

Can I continue using my favorite open source and none open source projects like NHibernate, Castle, Cuyahoga, log4net, Microsoft Enterprise Library and DNN?

I cannot comment on each project individually but many projects will run on mono with little to no modification.

Can I host Mono ASP.NET web projects in Apache without any problem?

It depends on your apache skills but it's possible to do.

Can I use my skills in ASP.NET webforms and MVC in Mono exactly?

The should be no difference in the code you write between doing so in VS and MonoDevelop.

Travis
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  • I just stumbled upon a case when compiling same code in Mono and .NET C# gives different results... (Code wars are using Mono C# and while coding challenge gives expected results in Visual Studio, loading those in Code wars page the results for some test cases give different results. I am having `static` methods, using recursion - I wander if mono handles method arguments (by ref / by val) and statics differently than .NET C#? Or perhaps the problem is elsewhere :/ – Prokurors Feb 08 '17 at 13:49
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The thing to know about ASP.Net and Mono is that Mono just dropped support for ASP.net.

*** Note: hmm.... I could have sworn I heard this on a Jeff & Joel podcast, but Googling around doesn't give me a good reference.

Scott C Wilson
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    If they did, the [FAQ](http://www.mono-project.com/FAQ:_ASP.NET) hasn't been updated yet. Reading it though gives me the impression that even if ASP.NET support isn't outright dropped, depending on Mono for ASP.NET is probably not a good idea. If nothing else, support is both partial and a couple versions behind. – Adam Lear Jul 26 '11 at 19:48
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Does Mono is dependable considering recent changes of Mono, Novell, Xamarin and Attachme?

Mono has present and future. They now not depend of the strategy of a big company. Xamarin has the IP rights of Mono and related products.

Miguel de Icaza and Nat Friedman have experience managing a independent opensource company.

Rufo El Magufo
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