How to Edit, Compile and Debug .NET program in Linux with Visual Studio Code

When it comes to .NET development in Linux platforms, we don't have enough choice. The best tool to develop .NET applications is Microsoft Visual Studio. Unfortunately, it is not available for Linux. Then Microsoft announced the Visual Studio Code, a free and cross-platform supported IDE. It is not fully featured like Visual Studio itself. But it can do a lot of things with the help of official and community contributed plugins.

Last year, Red Hat blog featured a tutorial that helps to get started with developing .NET applications in GNU/Linux platforms. In this tutorial a sample Music Store app is being considered for demonstration.

One of the best features of Visual Studio is the ability to launch and debug an application from within the IDE. This is not an uncommon feature nowadays. When running .NET on Linux, however, you can’t use Visual Studio as your IDE. What to do?

The answer is Visual Studio Code, a free IDE that will allow you to edit, compile, launch, and debug your application from within your IDE. This post will guide you through this cycle.

Note: I’m using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as my Linux of choice. You can grab your own free developer’s edition of RHEL and run it in a Virtual Machine (VM) on your Windows box (I’m using Oracle’s VirtualBox).

I’ll also be using the sample application, Music Store, which you can grab from GitHub if you wish to follow along. Of course, this blog is applicable to your own code as well.

If you do follow along with the Music Store app, keep in mind that the .NET Core tooling is currently going through a transition from the project.json/xproj standard to MSBuild/csproj, and the Music Store sample is already updated to the new standard. The tooling version from the official .NET website right now is the 1.0.0-preview2, which is still in the old standard. Therefore, in order to run the sample, you should checkout the branch called rel/1.1.0-preview1, which contains the project.json-based version.

Read original tutorial in Red Hat developers blog.

Integrating Global Application Menu with GNOME Shell

The concept Global AppMenu was first introduced by Canonical's unity shell in GNU/Linux world. Despite of several negative opinions on unity shell, Global AppMenu was a widely accepted feature. It was bless for people migrating from other operating systems like macOS because it is already a familiar feature for them. It was also accepted by people who appreciate efficient use of screen space, especially those who own netbooks and small sized displays.

Since the inception of Global AppMenu in unity shell, there has been several attempts to introduce this idea in other desktop environments. Vala AppMenu developed by rilian-la-te(github id) is one of the notable extension/plugin for Global AppMenu integration. It works with Vala panel, xfce4 panel, mate panel and even with budgie panel. This makes it a popular extension for enabling Global AppMenu.

A preview of Global Application Menu extension with GNOME shell

In this tutorial, I would like to demonstrate installation of a Global AppMenu extension in GNOME Desktop environment. For this, I'm planning to use GNOME Global AppMenu extension developed by lestcape(github).

Option 1 : Install from Github repository (Advanced users only)

You can download GNOME Global AppMenu extension from github and install it. If you are an advanced user, I don't have to tell you how to install an extension. You can do it yourself.

Option 2 : Install from GNOME Extensions portal (Older versions of GNOME Shell)

GNOME Global AppMenu extension currently supports versions ranging from 3.18 - 3.24. 

If you are using GNOME 3.18 or 3.20, you can go to gnome extensions website and search for GNOME Global Application Menu.  

GNOME Global Application Menu extension in GNOME extensions website. See ON/OFF toggle button shown in website. It won't be visible in unsupported websites.

Open the resulting extension and click ON/OFF toggle button. It will automatically download and install app menu extensions on your system.

Once installation is done, you will be notified to restart system. You don't have to restart the system. A simple restart is sufficient enough.

For restarting gnome shell, press ALT + F2 key combination, and type 'r' in resulting dialog window. Then press enter. Your shell will be restarted with newly installed AppMenu extension.

Option 3 : Install from GNOME Software (Newer versions of GNOME Shell)

For newer versions of GNOME Shell, GNOME Extension website will be disabled by default. In that case, you can search for GNOME Global Application Menu in GNOME Software and install from there.

I have not tried this step myself. So can not guarantee whether it will work or not. Sorry for that.

If it is not working, you can goto Github repository as mentioned in option 1 and install extension from there.

If you need any help or clarifications please let me know in comment box.

Enjoy!!.

Switching to Ubuntu 16.04 from windows 7/10 ecosystem

It is a well known fact that most of the servers around the world are powered by GNU/Linux operating systems. GNU/Linux operating systems are preferred over their competitors because of it's security, features, stability, performance, less prone to virus behavior ..etc.

But despite of several benefits of GNU/Linux over it's competitors, it has comparatively less hold on desktop computers. This is owing historical reasons and non-friendly behavior of GNU/Linux distributions. Over the years, several GNU/Linux based operating systems were emerged and some of them were successful in marking their presence and attracting more users.

Ubuntu - GNU/Linux OS backed by Canonical - is one of the example of modern GNU/Linux distribution. This operating system runs on wide range of platforms including server computers, clouds, mobile devices, desktops, embedded systems ..etc.

Credit : www.pcwdld.com

When it is known that Ubuntu has multiple critical benefits over other operating systems like Windows, the question is why not to shift from Windows to Ubuntu. An article published pcwdld portal is trying to address this issue. It explains how to convert a fresh installation of Ubuntu 16.04 to give a Windows 7/10 experience.

As Network and Sys Admins who’ve been in the business for years now, we’ve been looking for ways to minimize our risk of exploitation and the continual need to update our workstations every Tuesday – so what better way to do that then to jump on the Linux bandwagon and figure out a way to finally make the switch over to Ubuntu.

We’re consistently logging into web servers that run Ubuntu 14.04 to administrate our LEMP Stack and we’ve become rather familiar with NGINX as well. So why not just make the switch over to an Ubuntu Desktop for our primary OS too? One of our engineers decided to take the leap into the unknown and configure his Ubuntu 16.04 LTS setup to mimic his old Windows 10 Workstation that he grew so accustomed to using, day-in and day-out.

Right off the bat, getting Ubuntu installed was a piece of Cake – we initially installed the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on a virtual machine to test it out and try to get it configured in a way that we could utilize some basic tools we needed for every day network management and monitoring tasks.

Read complete article in pcwdld portal.

How to install Budgie Desktop 10.2.6 in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

Budgie is an independently developed, lightweight, full featured desktop environment developed by Solus project. Even though it is developed from scratch, it make use of GNOME 3 components in some extend to avoid reinventing wheel. However, it avoids all bulkiness of GNOME and brings best experience to the user.

This article is written for people who prefer to test budgie desktop on their existing Ubuntu installation. If you are planning to be a serious budgie user, then it is highly recommended to use budgie-remix - an unofficial flavor of Ubuntu featuring budgie desktop. The budgie-remix project is expected to be an official community flavor of Ubuntu in near future. With budgie-remix you can get more support from it's maintainers.

budgie desktop in budgie-remix 16.04

At the time of writing this tutorial, budgie-desktop is not a part of official Ubuntu repository. So you need to add a third party repository maintained by budgie-remix developers.

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:budgie-remix/ppa

Then update package list as usual using apt command.

$ sudo apt update

One you are done with package update, it is time to install budgie desktop.

$ sudo apt install budgie-desktop

Done!!. You are done with installation of budgie desktop. Now reboot your system or restart display manager to introduce budgie desktop entry in desktop environment list.When you login next time, choose budgie desktop from the list of desktop environment and proceed.

Yes. You have successfully installed an logged into budgie desktop session. In case of any issues with installation of budgie desktop, please get back to us on comments.

How to install Budgie Desktop 10.2.6 in Fedora 22/23

It was last day, solus developer Ikey announced release of Budgie Desktop 10.2.6, latest stable release of elegant, compact and user friendly desktop environment built to be compatible with GNOME 3.x. Even though Budgie is flag ship desktop environment of Solus, it can work in other mjaro distributions as well.

Budgie Desktop in Solus 1.2

This tutorial will list the steps to be followed for installing budgie desktop 10.2.6 in Fedora 22 and Fedora 23. If you have already installed Budgie Desktop in your system, you can use regular system update command to get budgie desktop 10.2.6. Otherwise, please follow this tutorial.

Budgie Desktop 10.2.6 was successfully built on Fedora 22 and Fedora 23 but not on Fedora 24. If you are using Fedora 24, please continue on your own risk.

STEP 1 : Grab Repository
Prior to installing any package which is not available in official Fedora repositories, we need to add corresponding repositories. So, first step before installing budgie desktop is to configure budgie repositories. Separate repositories are available for Fedora 22 and Fedora 23.
Open terminal and execute following command to grab repository.

#Fedora 22
$ wget http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:ikeydoherty:solus-project/Fedora_22/home:ikeydoherty:solus-project.repo -o solus-project.repo

#Fedora 23
$ wget http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:ikeydoherty:solus-project/Fedora_23/home:ikeydoherty:solus-project.repo -o solus-project.repo

Now we have to move the repository file that we just downloaded, to repos directory. Since it belongs to root, we need super user permission for doing this task.

$ sudo mv *solus-project.repo /etc/yum.repos.d/
[password]

STEP 2 : Install Budgie Desktop
Thus we've successfully added Budgie Desktop repository. Now, next step is to install budgie-desktop packages using dnf command.

$sudo dnf install budgie-desktop
[password]

STEP 3 : Logout session and Login to Budgie session
Now we're done with installation Budgie Desktop. Now logout your current session. When you login next time, choose Budgie Desktop from desktop environment menu. If it is missing try restarting your display manager(gdm/kdm/mdm..etc) or restarting your computer.

Installing MATE Desktop 1.14 in Ubuntu MATE 16.04

Two months after release of MATE Desktop 1.14, Ubuntu MATE team has announced availability of MATE Desktop 1.14 for Ubuntu MATE 16.04 and later editions. This release of MATE Desktop is not yet available in official Ubuntu repositories. So Ubuntu MATE team has prepared one PPA(Personal Package Archive) for MATE Desktop 1.14 that is compatible with Ubuntu MATE 16.04.

Ubuntu MATE team is actually providing MATE Desktop 1.14.1, first bug fix release v1.14. This will help users to have more stable desktop. Some components in MATE 1.14 is updated to be compatible with GTK 3, however MATE 1.14 provided by Ubuntu MATE is compiled with GTK 2, to ensure compatibility with Ubuntu MATE 16.04.

For installing MATE Desktop 1.14, first you need to enable PPA which can be done using following command.

$ sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntu-mate-dev/xenial-mate

Once PPA is enabled, next step is to update package list and then upgrade system using usual commands.

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt dist-upgrade

This will ask confirmation to remove mate-netspeed package which is now a part of mate-applets. So you can confirm this without any worries.

Source : Ubuntu MATE blog.

How to enable global menu in Lubuntu?

Global Menu or application menu on top panel was a nice feature introduced by OS X operating system before one decade. Later Ubuntu adopted same feature in it's own desktop environment Unity shell. Now, Lubuntu, a lightweight flavor of Ubuntu featuring LXDE desktop, has got one applet to enable global application menu.

Global Application menu applet works with Lubuntu 16.04 or later versions. This feature will work with GTK2/GTK3 apps and some Qt apps. It is also warned that LibreOffice and Firefox may fail to use this feature.

This article explains steps to be followed to enable global application menu in Lubuntu 16.04 Xenial Xeruls or later releases.

Install necessary packages

$ sudo apt install xfce4-topmenu-plugin libtopmenu-client-gtk2-0 libtopmenu-server-gtk2-0 libtopmenu-client-gtk3-0 libtopmenu-server-gtk3-0 topmenu-gtk2 topmenu-gtk3
[password]

Edit start up script.

Open following start up script with your favorite text editor with proper permissions.

/etc/profile.d/topmenu-gtk.sh

and then add following snippet.

#!/bin/sh
export GTK_MODULES=$GTK_MODULES:topmenu-gtk-module

Now reboot your system to bring this script into action.

Add top menu applet

Right click on Lubuntu panel and add plugin named TopMenu. Additionally you may add more plugins like app button to bring window controls on top panel.

Adding top menu applet

Disclaimer : This tutorial is adopted from Lubuntu tips and tricks and webupd8 portal.

Installing Snap packages in Ubuntu 16.04

Snap is a new kind of package format supported by Ubuntu in addition to .deb formats. The advantage of snap packages is that, it includes all its dependencies. This make installation and dependency management easy and also developers can ensure that their apps are always used with libraries with which it was made of.

An article written by Jack Wallen, published in techrepublic portal explains, how to install .snap packages in Ubuntu 16.04, latest stable release of Ubuntu.

You've heard all the noise about the latest iteration of Ubuntu. Oh Snap, you didn't? Yes you did...you're just a bit confused. All the pundits are talking about Snap packages as if they were going to save the planet! Snap packages will cure every ailment the world has ever seen and are running for POTUS 2016.
Maybe those last bits are a bit of an exaggeration. But everyone has been going on and on about this new

I want to show you how to take care of the most basic task with Snap...installing applications. Before we get into this, I should warn you, there aren't a lot of Snap packages available yet. Even so, it's pretty cool to see how they are installed and, more importantly, that they install completely without dependency. That, in and of itself, is worth the price of admission!

See complete tutorial published in techrepublic portal.

Installing beautiful, flat Arc theme on Fedora 27/28

Arc is a beautiful, flat theme for GTK 2 and GTK 3 powered desktop environments including GNOME Shell, Cinnamon, Unity, MATE, Budgie, Pantheon, Xfce ..etc. It is the default theme used in distributions like Linux Lite.

Arc theme has multiple variations including Arc, Arc Dark, Arc Darker, Arc Solid, Arc Solid Dark ..etc. The Simple Arc theme uses the same color for windows and title bars, Arc Dark uses dark colored windows and title bars and Arc Darker uses dark colored title bar and light colored windows.

This guide will help you to install Arc theme in Fedora Workstation. Even though this tutorial is written for Fedora 27 and Fedora 28, it can be used for later versions also, provided the development team maintains this theme actively.

Arc theme on Fedora 23 Budgie Desktop

Removing previous installations (If any)

If you have already installed any previous versions of Arc theme, it is better to remove it to avoid any possible conflicts. You may use following command to remove previous installations.

$ sudo rm -rf /usr/share/themes/{Arc,Arc-Darker,Arc-Dark}
$ rm -rf ~/.local/share/themes/{Arc,Arc-Darker,Arc-Dark}
$ rm -rf ~/.themes/{Arc,Arc-Darker,Arc-Dark}

Installing Arc theme from repository

The Arc developers has created repositories for installing Arc theme. So If you prefer to use this version of Arc theme, you will have to grab these repositories and install theme using `dnf` utility.

Beginning from Fedora 27, Arc themes are officially available in Fedora repositories. So, it can be installed either using GNOME Software or using the dnf utility.

# Fedora 27 & Fedora 28

$ sudo dnf install arc-theme
$ [password]

Installing Arc theme from source code

If you are trying to install Arc theme in any Fedora release other than 22 and 23, or if you prefer to install latest version of Arc theme, it is recommended to install Arc theme from source code, which again a straight forward process and only requires a few commands.

But as prerequisites, you need to have following utilities/tools installed in your system.

• autoconf
• automake
• pkgconfig
• gtk3-devel
• git (if you are fetching theme source code using git command)

Once, you've these tools installed, you can following commands to install Arc theme.

$ git clone https://github.com/horst3180/arc-theme --depth 1 && cd arc-theme
$ ./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr
$ sudo make install

Activating Arc theme

Now you have successfully installed Arc theme in your Fedora system. You can use Arc theme as any other theme.

Changing theme using GNOME shell

It's activation is completely dependent on the Desktop environment that you are using. For example, if you are using GNOME shell, you will have to install gnome-tweak-tool to change theme(Of course, command line options is there). For other environments, generally, you can find theme settings/appearance settings pre-installed.

New GNOME Software supports system upgrade : Upgrading to Fedora 24

Updating operating system was never an easy task. Few years ago, it was running a lot of commands and waiting impatiently to get system updated. But, things changed rapidly. Now there are operating systems which let you to migrate to newer versions with a few mouse clicks.

Fedora, being one of the bleeding edge distribution will allow you to install latest cutting edge packages through coptr repositories. An updated version of GNOME Software can help you to update your system. A blog post published by gnome developers explains, how to upgrade your Fedora 23 installation to Fedora 24.

Since Fedora 24 is in Alpha state now(21sth April 2016), this update task is not recommended for regular users. Once, Fedora 24 finds it's final release, everyone can proceed with this.

I’ve spent the last couple of days fixing up all the upgrade bugs in GNOME Software and backporting them to gnome-3-20. The idea is that we backport gnome-software plus a couple of the deps into Fedora 23 so that we can offer a 100% GUI upgrade experience. It’s the first time we’ve officially transplanted a n+1 GNOME component into an older release (ignoring my unofficial Fedora 20 whole-desktop backport COPR) and so we’re carefully testing for regressions and new bugs.

See original tutorial in GNOME blogs.