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Cross platform development, GUI and Database - c#

Forgive me for asking a common question, but I couldn't quite get what I needed from what I found so far.
First question - SQLite. I am using this DB as in my C#.NET 3.5 windows service and it works great, I was looking for a portable solution, because I would like port my service to a linux daemon etc, using Mono, which seems to support it. However, I am not sure how to implement this. I had thought the dll was compatable, but it seems there is a seperate dll for Mono/.NET which I should have expected. Does this mean I need to seperately code/compile for each platform or is there something that would allow me use of SQLite with the same code on various platforms? I have encountered this a few times in my searches, csharp sqlite, a "reimplementation". To be honest, this is quite new to me, is it of use? The Mono SQlite page says that they Mono.Data.Sqlite code is based on System.Data.SQlite and goes on to say...
"We have chosen this way as means to
provide a migration path for
developers using SQLite in their .NET
applications"
Are they referring to creating a new, seperate binary? Or could I run my code as is with some adaptation?
Second question - GUI. As far as I can tell the two main options for cross platform dev in .NET would be GTK# and Winforms. Again however, its the specifics of implementation that are a bit hazey. Can I create a win forms GUI in visual studio as I normally would then easily migrate this using mono? Or should I develop this in something like X-Develop or MonoDevelop?
Many thanks for your advice/patience :D

To help out a little bit here I used the full mysql dll file that was provided and I was able to compile my program on windows using visual studio, and then deploy it to Linux without changing anything(except the case of the mysql dll file, which is kind of annoying you'll see what I mean at some point).
Also from what I've heard winforms isn't totally supported by mono yet, but I may be wrong. I haven't done a gui cross platform yet, but I would test winforms first, just so you could develop it in visual studio, and if that doesn't work I think GTK should be fine.
You just need to make sure that the dll's are compiled for .net 3.5 or below and you should be fine(90% of the time).
Check this out here, http://www.mono-project.com/MoMA and also the link that chris provided.

Differences in development between .NET and Mono

I'm looking into Mono and .NET C# and we'll be needing to run the code on Linux Servers in the future when the project is developed. At this point I've been looking at ASP.NET MVC and Mono.
I run an Ubuntu distro and want to do development for a web application, some of the other developers use Windows and run other .NET items with Visual Studio.
What does Mono not provide that Visual Studio does?
If running this on Linux later shouldn't we use MonoDevelop?
Are there some third party tools or add-ins that might be an issue with Mono later?

What does Mono not provide that Visual Studio does?
MonoDevelop is presumably what you mean here. MonoDevelop offers cross platform development on Linux, Mac OS X, Windows based on GTK. However it is not as polished as Visual Studio for obvious reasons - it's 3 people making it, not hundreds. It has some nice features, especially its source control plugin architecture. However as Visual Studio Express is free there aren't many advantages on Windows to using it.
It uses the same .csproj and .sln format as Visual Studio, however the XML docs format is different.
If running this on Linux later shouldn't we use MonoDevelop ?
As I mentioned above, the project formats are inter-operable.
Are there some third party tools or add-ins that might be an issue with Mono later?
Unlike Visual Studio, there aren't a huge wealth of add-ins for Monodevelop. The ones that you use in Monodevelop won't effect your .csproj files at all, as anything Visual Studio cannot read it generally ignores.
As people have said don't confuse Mono for MonoDevelop. MonoDevelop is an IDE for Mono that originally came from (forked) SharpDevelop.
Mono is the cross platform framework that 'apes' the Microsoft CLR and framework libraries.

I don't have much experience in this area but...
The Mono Project Roadmap has an overview of features that are new, upcoming, and not present in Mono compared to MS.NET. Even where Mono has the same classes as .NET, note that compatibility is not 100% (although that is generally their goal). I'm not sure if there exists a comprehensive list of things missing in Mono.
MonoDevelop is now available on both Windows and Linux so you're probably best off using it. However, MonoDevelop does appear to use the same project file format as Visual Studio and SharpDevelop, so you could make an attempt at mixing IDEs.
Of course, when using 3rd-party .NET libraries, note that many of them have not been tested with mono, and in particular anything that uses P/Invoke will not work on Mono for Linux. However, most incompatibilities with mono are minor, and if you stick with open-source libraries you can always fix any incompatibilities you run into.

You might also take a look at Mono Tools for Visual Studio. It lets your visual studio developers target and test with the mono platform.

You're aiming to always have support, and/or primarily use the software on Linux, correct? This is actually a question I asked the Mono developers at a conference a little while back, and it basically boiled down to what you want to do with it.
If you want it to always work on Linux, then use Mono. If you only care about Windows, then use Visual Studio.
If you're using Mono, then use MonoDevelop across all developers. It'll just make life a lot easier later on, and it'll make sure that whatever you write in the one will work for everyone.
Unfortunately, I do not know the answer to the exact limits/advantages of Mono vs. .NET, aside from .NET being further ahead, and Mono playing catch-up, nor about different addons.

If none of your developers need to develop on Mono for certain features, I suggest you all use Visual Studio on Windows. Then test the applications on Mono via
Mono Tools for Visual Studio
manually copy the binaries over
check out the code on Linux and build in MonoDevelop.
Personally I experienced a lot of small troubles when I tried out the third way, but luckily I am capable of finding workarounds.
It is only when you touch Mono, you know which part of your application needs to be tuned.
http://www.mono-project.com/Start

If you can help it, it'd recommend avoiding the Mono implementation of Remoting. There seem to be some unexpected hiccups and debugging it is not straight-forward.
We had a very Remoting heavy product that we tried to port to Mono so we could support Linux. Due to being unable to resolve the Remoting issues, we eventually had to abandon our attempts at supporting Linux altogether.
Caveat: my experiences may be outdated. See comments below

You don't need MonoDevelop in order to run ASP.NET program in Linux, make a shared folder on your development server (VMWare'd or real one), test often so you can easily work-around what's missing from Mono
That's the same approach I'm using in my .NET Remoting program I host on Ubuntu server. But I do the reverse, since I'm a solo programmer, I make a shared folder on my Windows development machine, then access that shared folder on my Ubuntu test server (vmware'd). On ASP.NET stuff, if the changes don't reflect on your Ubuntu test server, in Terminal just touch the Web.Config file in your Ubuntu test server. i.e. touch Web.Config, then refresh the page

Mono has a fully functional implementation of ASP.NET. This includes full support for ASP.NET Web Forms and Web Services. This essentially means that more or less any ASP.NET application that you have developed using with the .NET Framework will work with Mono. Obviously there might be changes needed, such as data access changes, removal of any
reliance on .NET Framework BCL types . Mono- Oracle users-.Net Programming C# : ubuntu 11.04

C# -Mono (platform independence)

I'm very newbie to Ubuntu OS and I have my solution developed in visual studio 2008.
I want my application to run in both windows and Linux(ubuntu).
I've few questions in my mind.
Does mono support visual debugger .
If I start development using
mono.Is it possible to run same in
.net framework (windows) ?? or do I
need to write the NSI script to
download the libraries during
installation from internet and
install.
What is the best way to
achieve platform independence.
Thanks in advance.

Yes, Mono has a debugger - see MonoDevelop.
Assuming you don't use any Mono-specific libraries, or ship them alongside your app, it should just work in Windows against the Microsoft .NET implementation - although of course you'd want to test it.
A lot of achieving platform independence is a matter of the libraries you use: make sure whatever you want to call is either already available in both platforms or can be shipped alongside your app. Beyond that, there are obvious things like not assuming a particular path/directory separator, potentially not assuming a particular endianness (although that's rarely an issue in C# in my experience) - and regular testing, both manual and automated as far as possible.

There is an Mono add-in for Visual Studio that warns you when building your app if you use something that Mono doesn't support yet.
Don't remember the name, thought.

Microsoftless C# development system for Windows

If you were given a new computers with Windows ( XP or Vista ) and had to install a development system for C# which used as little as it could of stuff created at Microsoft, how would you do it?
PS:
I want to make clear ( since it seems I initially didn't ), I do not mean an IDE.
I mean a system. Suppose I install XP or Vista without installing .Net.
What "components" ie compilers, runtimes and libraries do I have to install to make develop in C# and how can i do it using as few Microsoft products as I can.

The question is, Why aren't you using Microsoft products for a product created by Microsoft?
If the answer is cost then have a looksee at the free version of the C# IDE and Compiler, Visual Studio Express.
If there are other reasons, then you can always use your own text editor, download Mono and get the Mono C# compiler and compile everything yourself. If you're looking for an alternative IDE, SharpDevelop is available.

In terms of development IDE one of your best bets would be SharpDevelop
If you want to go a step further and not even use the Microsoft compiler you can use Mono (C# only).

The .NET Framework itself comes with a compiler and build system (csc/msbuild, the equivalent of gcc/make) built in. It's in C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\v3.5. All you really need to build .NET code is a copy of Notepad (or preferably, Vim)

CSharpBuilder
Sharp Develop
Mono

I have heard about Sharp develop

You could use Eclipse, Mono and a C# plugin. For the more complex stuff you could use the command line for compiling.

I had used ASP.Net Web Matrix to develop some web site in c#1.0 years ago. Its free, lite & easy to use.

How to program in C# with TextMate as my IDE?

Yes, I know there is MonoDevelop. But what if I want to use Textmate instead?
So my question here is aimed at the .Net developer who has developed some C# applications using Textmate. I'm curious as to what their process/workflow is with this setup.
What is the best C# bundle out there for syntax/language grammar?
How do you build your project? (easy to build app for 2.0, 3.0, and/or 3.5 framework?)
Can you easily start a C# application in Visual Studio, and then continue to use TextMate in it's place?
Are there too many pitfalls here in thinking I could do this, and am I just taking crazy pills?

To be honest I still do my actual C# building through a Virtual Machine running Windows, but I edit anything that I can through Textmate.
I use the ASP.Net VB.Net tmbundle and I actually just discovered a C# tmbundle.
I am planning on switching to building in MonoDevelop if I can, but right now I work with teams that only use Windows so to be safe I'm still stuck building in Visual Studio.

I know this is an old question, but I found it along the way when trying to find a C# bundle for TextMate.
The C# bundle has moved from the macromoates svn repos into github at https://github.com/wintermi/csharp-tmbundle.
Hopefully this helps other people looking for the bundle.