How does running ASP.Net on Linux compare to the standard Microsoft-centric solution?

Question

I know its possible to develop and host an ASP.Net site on Linux using Mono and Apache, but I\'d like to know how well it works and if its worth the hassle? I prefer open sourc

Answer 1

I switched from MS-centric solutions about a year and a half ago and now I'm hosting all of my websites and web projects on Linux/Mono/Apache/MySQL based virtual servers (I was originally using nginx instead of apache, but mono-fastcgi-server was randomly causing thrashing, so I choose apache as a web server). I can summarize my (subjective) experience with this configuration into a few points:

• It can take some time to get used to difference between Linux and MS based environments (if you never used Linux before), but I do not regret this decision. What helped me a lot was creating installation and configuration procedures for particular technologies (for example mono parallel environments, apache virtual hosts configurations, dealing with certain issues) which are mostly repeatable and can be automated.

• You can still use Visual Studio to develop your applications and then deploy them on Linux machine. If you are using this approach it's a good habit to test your apps regularly on mono for possible incompatibilities.

• I deploy web applications via FTP which is probably the easiest way of doing it (well maybe WinSCP is even easier, because you don't have to set up FTP server, but it depends on your preferences).

• So far I have run into 2 cases with Mono/Apache where memory leak caused unavailability of the website. This was probably caused by Boehm garbage collector which I was using on old mono installation. I haven't had similar problems with a new sgen GC on recent versions of mono.

• What I like the most on mono running on Linux environment compared to MS stuff is that you don't have to click around all the time when doing administrative tasks. Shell is for me unified administrative interface which can speed up things (if you have some practice).