Setting up C# Development Environment on Linux

Before we get into the darkest pit of P/Invoke, Intermediatory Language, and Reflection programming hell, we have to first set up our development environment!

The Distro and IDE

I recommend any Distro that doesn't try to hide header files that you would usually find in /usr/include on your distrobution. Arch Linux install all headers that come with the program by default, however on Ubuntu, it would attempt to hide header files in a seperate package with a package name "*-dev". So I recommend Arch Linux if there is no alternative, you can also use Antergos and other distros under Arch Linux if you wish to avoid installing Arch Linux manually.

I personally use Monodevelop for almost all of my projects, because of ease of use and flexibility to establish specific build steps and runtime steps.

Assuming you followed Arch Linux wiki guide for installing and have your Gnome/Plasma/Mate/Cinnamon or whatever desktop environment set up. You'll need to install mono/monodevelop using the following command:

pacman -S mono monodevelop

You'll need some of native tools that will help you get started on writing codes for Linux. So you'll need to install compiler and other tools, so you can go ahead and run the following command to install most of the tools you'll need for the tutorials.

pacman -S base-devel llvm clang gdb git

Now you have most of the tools you'll need to get started. Let's move on to Tutorial #1