Replies: 192 comments 711 replies
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No, it's not, this is a request. Discussions are simply a convenient place to put feedback a project wishes to ignore. |
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Sorry Joe, but you're way off the mark. I'm making excellent money as a professional developer (and have been for decades), and I'm currently working for a company that is primarily a Microsoft shop with a lot of .NET development. Our team uses a variety of workstation operating systems: Windows, Mac, and Linux. And we use both Windows and Linux servers (our own and cloud-based). I think your perspective is behind the times. But I can see that conversation with you on this topic is unlikely to be fruitful; you've got a lot of venom for some reason. I guess I'll just wish you well and move on. |
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It came ready only to spew hate, if I had researched a little I would see that it has several desktop projects for linux and most of them are beautiful and current projects. |
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And you can see, the ones that came to talk shit are all new accounts |
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Imagine being a dick just to defend Microsoft, which mind you Mono (which is where Xamarin spun off) initial goal was to help the Linux desktop. Not to mention being ignorant to the big difference between building an application and a GUI framework like MAUI... All while he himself haven't done anything for the project either. It's a shame Microsoft doesn't focus on this, and maybe OP was trying to make them realize this, I am a big Xamarin user in fact it's my day job while other platforms like React Native has this working out of the box. I wish I could use my Linux dev environment to work on Xamarin and MAUI made me hopeful it'll happen, I do not have time because of my area of expertise and current work https://github.com/hodlwallet/hodlwallet (which is all Open Source and Xamarin), so I go here #6385 to explain my findings. but then I read your comment and I thought what a pathetic jerk. |
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I'm not trying to dispute anything you're saying nor am I trying to say we'll never do what you suggest; I'm just trying to understand your point of view. The goal of MAUI, and @davidortinau and @jamesmontemagno should check mere here, is to provide a cross-platform experience, not a Windows-only one. My understanding is that it's focused on mobile (iOS, Android) + desktop (Windows, macOS). In a sense, Android is a flavor of Linux but I think when you mean Linux you mean desktop Linux (like Ubuntu). I'm not an expert in UI myself, but Microsoft tends to be pragmatic about cross-platform investments and we will go after stuff that is relevant to most of our current customers (or where most potential customers are). When we invest in Linux, we tend to do it on the server because that's where most of the Linux momentum seems to be. You might say "no, you're doing this because of Azure", but it's the other way around: Linux is super relevant for Azure because Linux is super relevant for the server and cloud. Also, we are building solutions for macOS (such as Office or Visual Studio for Mac) so it's generally not like we're keeping all our desktop investment Windows-only either. I can understand that this might not be a satisfactory answer if you're a Linux desktop user, but I am a bit confused why you believe we're disingenuous here. Could you elaborate your view point a bit? |
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At this point in the MS world, only web applications look truly cross-platform for building UI. |
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Microsoft should check how many Rider and Avalonia devs are out there on Linux. My gut tells me the numbers are high enough to go after that market. |
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MS very likely knows how many users have installed VS Code, MS Teams and/or their Git authentication app in Linux. Which I would guess is not insignificant... General usage charts have Linux desktop usage at around 1%, about 1/5 to 1/6 of MacOS. If you include Steam's survey it's a bit higher for gamers. I suspect it's also much higher for developers as well. VS Code usage is probably a pretty good indicator for this. There have been efforts to support Linux (GTK) but MS has been resistant to merge the support into mainline. This reduces any third party effort... I can only conclude that MS's ❤️ for Linux is meaningless in practice. |
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I would say that the VAST majority of the C#/.NET developers on Linux (myself included) are NOT building MAUI apps. They/we are all happily building API's, Blazor, MVC, etc which runs perfectly fine on Linux. |
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We don't build C#/.NET applications for Linux, because console "apps" are so 1986. I've been waiting and waiting for Microsoft to pull their heads out of their [REDACTED] and make a winforms replacement that was truly cross platform. |
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I think it can be viewed as disingenuous because the |
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MS bought the Android, Mac, IOS and Windows support by buying Xamarin. Also, they open sourced Xamarin after the purchase. All I can say is that MAUI really is just a rebrand of Xamarin to make it part of the dotnet framework base similar to EF or other libraries and realign the project to be more uniform. I think expecting MS to add support during the rebrand was unrealistic, and at least they said Linux support from the community and not Linux users not welcome. There is no discrimination here at all about Linux. If Microsoft where to start the support, they would then be on the hook for support. I don't know the reason and can only speculate, but for them it is safer to not have something, and it might suck, than release something that sucks and doesn't appease all the Linux users. I would also add that I don't know how much Linux desktop is used in Micrsoft that is not used in WSL. They may use the servers a lot, but not sure how many engineers use Linux desktop as a daily driver there. I also think that it is not a matter of if they will support Linux desktop, but more of a when. MAUI itself hasn't been released so I think they are going through some growing pains. My prediction would be that the first release won't see a ton of changes. Once it is in the wild for a while a lot will change in dotnet 7 timeframe release to fix and stabilize the MAUI framework. After that is when I would expect Linux support. So the next dotnet LTS release would be my best guess if they are going to add anything. I don't and I wouldn't want to take on a completely new environment for a first release of a new product if it where me. For marketing purposes, I think a lot of eyes on going to be on the first release of MAUI since it is their new framework set to unify dotnet front end development even though it is mostly a rebrand. I would also like to take the moment to explain to the people here what open source is because it seems some people forget. Open source means that any developer can take the code and do with it what they want. Well at least with dotnet and MAUI. Dotnet is MIT licensed. So, you could take the code and actually make a product from it and sell it if you want and all you need to do is give credit to the developers of it. What open source does not mean is that any company or developer needs to support, add, or believe in anything people don't like or care about. Microsoft currently doesn't see any value in adding Linux desktop support and that is on them as the maintainer of the project. If Microsoft really wanted to screw Linux over they wouldn't have made it open source and kept it out of developer hands. Currently if a company or individual decides they want to support it I am sure there are enough devs here to get something going and then get it merged into Microsoft if it follows their guidelines and process. MS has taken plenty of features, fixes, and improvements to dotnet since it has become open source. They have been better with it lately than they have when dotnet first became open source. From what I have seen there have been a lot of talk, the starting of a project, but then it seems to have stalled since the developer needed to focus on other things. If this is super important to you and your company get them to pony up some cash to get Linux support and reach out to the sales team of Microsoft asking for it and telling them that if they don't then you are going to use other tech. Complaining on a forum on github probably doesn't get looked at and is really hard to gauge interest, impact, and cost. The developers are not the ones that need to be vocal on this. People need to get their companies involved. If you work at a large company that has a large contract you can probably get more answers and maybe get something going if enough companies complain that this feature is a deal breaker from using MS technology. Me personally I want it for a hobby project and it is a nice to have. I think it will come eventually, but as I stated before I don't do desktop dev professionally much, so this doesn't affect me other than wanting to port my skills to developing for Linux apps. |
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In other words, once one understands that Microsoft is a business, meaning a money-making machine, one can quickly infer that the decisions on what platforms to support are taken based on financial incentives. |
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Don't agree. You cannot assume there are infinite developers who can develop for all platforms at the same time |
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@wangyjx |
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Ok sorry if this goes a bit ot, but can Linux really be counted as big when it comes to desktop OSes? |
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According to pages like enterpriseappstoday.com1, Linux users cover around 47% of professional developers. But no matter the numbers, what I'm most annoyed by is the lack of communication on this from Microsoft. In none of the talks and presentations about .NET MAUI during .NET Conf or //build/, in any of their documentation, or even here on the MAUI repo itself, do we get a statement on why they don't support desktop Linux. A simple statement like "sorry, it's too complicated" or "we can't decide between GTK or QT and we want to make it perfect, y'know?" would suffice for me. But instead we have this radio silence on the topic, which just feels borderline insulting. Does anyone know any source you can link where Microsoft or some .NET MAUI devs have made a statement on (the lack of) Linux support? Would be grand to hear. Footnotes |
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I ended up giving up and surrendering to Flutter. Unfortunately, Microsoft shit on us and the Desktop Linux community. |
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Hey @osnipezzini you still can have Linux app using Blazor with Electron.NET or Photino! |
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This is joke right ? the Electron itself is a shame that should be abolished. Super heavy, carries an integrated browser among so many problems. I don't even know Photino, but if I were to make a web app to run on a cell phone, I would just make a website, right? I want native apps only. |
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While Electron is pretty heavy in terms of memory, disk useage etc, a lot of the others such as Photino or tauri instead target Webview2 on windows. Webview2 is a thing installed by default under windows 11 and can be installed seperately under windows 10 (not yet preinstalled) or included as part of the built project. For windows you can just create a winforms app with a single blazorwebview control then have everything hosted inside of that. For linux you still need something like Photino, Chromely (now depreciated) etc and they tend to use a gtk control instead, although I think webview2 for Linux is on the roadmap - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2/roadmap If you want native apps only which are fully cross platform then the only option at the moment that seems to be getting frequent updates is avaloniaui or uno |
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In my opinion, just looking at overall market share shouldn't be the deciding factor. In some markets GNU/Linux is much more important than in others, SO's survey puts Linux at 25% and I'd assume "IT Professionals" in general are more likely to use GNU/Linux as an operating system. If your product targets this market, first class Linux support is an important aspect. Another solution might be better suited and with that .NET looses it's huge advantage of being a "one-stop-shop" for all your programming needs. |
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Fact: development on a Mac sucks! |
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You are completely wrong. I have used Microsoft OS's since 1985 but the day I switched to macOS (my choice by the way) I have NEVER gone back. Windows is unreliable, horrible ui, and requires far to much day today support and troubleshooting. macOS just works. It's Unix roots make it ideal for developing services which run on Linux, and it's non Microsoft IDE's are excellent. I develop almost exclusively on .net and I don't have any issue doing this on macOS. I use rider as my main ide, and it is head and tails better than any visual Studio running on windows. As for people using macOS for developing - most of Silicon Valley companies use macOS for all there developers, and those who don't use Linux not Windows. Windows on the server is even worse - I haven't deployed a system to a windows server since 2016 and I don't plan to either. Bottom line: the world has moved on from windows being the be all and end all. If you refuse to see that you are simply cutting your nose to spite your face |
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Typically with windows you tend to have good and bad cycles.
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Most of this is "true", and some of this is suspect. I work almost exclusively on Linux, but do have to do some Windows based .NET Framework development. |Windows is unreliable, horrible ui, and requires far to much day today support and troubleshooting I happen to think that working on a macOS is horrible, which is my subjective opinion. There are tons of great developers using Windows, certainly far more than there are using Linux, so your "most of Silicon Valley is using XYZ" is just not true. I agree that Rider is far superior to VS though :) |
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As a side note... instead of fixing errors in NTFS that have been there for 23 years, Microsoft spent their budget on making their metro icons more "crisp" by changing it over to a font. They did this in the wake of it being release onto the internet and everyone making sites that when you clicked on the links, your hard drive became corrupted. They then claimed that it was too difficult to fix, and that no one would ever encounter it. AFTER people had their files destroyed.| So, I challenge the whole Window's reliability is fine. It's not. It's a house of cards. And, I have said that for over a decade, though I left the Microsoft ecosystem in 2019. (After using Microsoft OSes since DOS 2.11.) OS/2 was a better, and more solid OS.. and Linux is too. |
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In my opinion, Linux support is of no concern for the current project. There are major problems that need to be addressed. The Linux market share on normal computers is very small. Linux is more represented on servers, but you don't need UI applications, but simple console applications are in the foreground, which has already been implemented by .NET. Microsoft support for Linux can be addressed again in the future when .NET Maui is up and running and the way it works is improved. Don't get me wrong, I am also in favor of Linux being supported, but for that you first have to change and manifest the base, and you are still very limited in the way you work with XF, which will be a follow-up error in Maui. What I would like to add is that we are moving into a time of mobile first. The goal of Xamarin and subsequently Maui is implementation for mobile devices. The support of UWP and MacOS is more of a strategic concern, since both OS can be linked more and more with mobile devices. |
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All of those areas are already covered by dotnet. The one place that Linux doesn't own is the Desktop and I would argue that Apple owns the mobile space. MAUI is a desktop client and that is the one place that Linux is used the least. You can already use dotnet on Linux server. So I am not even sure why this is relevant. Also why does it matter what the Chinese market uses? Windows is heavily pirated in China, India, and Russia. So it would seem that even though people have access to Linux for free, they prefer Windows. If I had to guess it probably has more to do with gaming which Windows hands down has the market share for in the foreseeable future. This is not a small segment of the market either, but if you want to play any kind of PC game you have to run Windows. |
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Your missing the point. Linux is a kernel not an operating system. Android and ChromeOS are both operating systems that use the Linux kernel. Android holds a 72% market share and PlayStation holds a 93.03% market share. I was quoting factual numbers that I researched and not throwing random numbers out there. The Linux desktop is starting to dominate the Government and Military sectors. .NET as an opportunity to become a major player and give those of us that actually make money with .NET to tap markets that haven't already been saturated. Linux should be a priority because its an untapped market for .NET developers to make money! |
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I want to second the sentiment on embedded. I advocated MAUI for a project internally that needs to run on a windows computer in a police cruiser but also on Samsung DEX ( Android ). This is a "mobile first" application. The project was started but hardly two weeks in we realized that we are just recreating the UI of another device in the vehicle that has its own screen. This other device runs Linux and is using Qt for the UI. We now want all three devices to use the same UI. MAUI is no longer acceptable as MAUI cannot serve UI to Windows, Android, and Linux ( Ubuntu ) as is now required. We are already migrating away from MAUI before we even release our app and the ONLY reason is the lack of Linux support. It is possible we may use Uno instead. For myself personally, I am typing this comment on my Linux desktop which is where I do all my .NET dev these days. I have not been able to dig into MAUI as I cannot do MAUI dev on this machine. My target audience may be iOS and Android but how do I develop the app if I cannot build it for myself on my dev machine? Dumb. |
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@jmalcolm137 you can develop on Linux without problems for .NET MAUI for iOS and Android. |
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Apple does not own the mobile space. Android is a fair bigger market. And PC gaming absolutely does not require Windows thanks to the excellent work of Valve. Granted, there are some games that require Windows, but that number is constantly reducing. |
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Kindly note that Flutter started with Android and iOS and later started expanding to include Linux - which is still not production-ready (not of excellent quality). Why should Linux be top priority?
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Windows support for flutter is also alpha, Maybe windows shouldn't be a priority for Maui either. |
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Microsoft contributes Windows support Linux community/companies should contribute Linux support |
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Google doesn't contribute Android support, and Apple doesn't contribute iOS or MacOSX support. |
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MAUI would have to prove itself as a worthwhile cross-platform UI toolkit first, for which it would have to support Linux. |
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@lee-b It does support Linux (maintained by community). This thread is asking for Microsoft's official support. |
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I can certainly build the point up more and it's going to indicate that Microsoft works against its own best interests in these situations. In doing this, I would like to make clear that the fact that you're hearing from me and others on this means we care about Microsoft's success. Not solely because it benefits us to have more libraries & tools, but because if Microsoft can land a good true multi-platform desktop SDK, the state of the art for desktop development will be furthered as a whole. The Myth of Fragmentation as a Barrier
This framing - which is fine if it's the extent of what you know of desktop Linux today - really makes me want to call out whoever fed it to you as once again being disingenuous. There is no legitimate excuse by way of citing fragmentation that holds up these days when debating whether to support Linux. Don't take it from me, the mechanism for distribution is no different to what Microsoft does for the .net SDK & runtime, Visual Studio Code, Azure Data Studio, Edge, Azure Storage Explorer, Azure CLI and more already! There are certainly differences between Linux distributions, but you can rest assured that most desktop Linux installations have GTK3 (and soon 4) available. This is not 1999, Microsoft needs to stop replaying outdated spin to itself as a justification to sideline Linux (more on this later). Further to the point of diversity however, arguably application packaging is something that fragments across a multi-platform toolkit anyway. A Windows store app is packaged differently to an Android app, so frankly I don't buy that any last-mile challenges Linux support poses is even outside the wheelhouse of what maui proposes to offer already. Visionary vs. Reactionary
I don't buy this. This is a nearsighted and oppressive kind of pragmatism that simply sees Microsoft late to the party and missing the mark every time. I'll spare us all the laundry list of Microsoft failures, but let's not act like they don't exist, okay? I would invite you and those you report to, to take a detailed look at why your competition had no issues coming up on the other side of the same decision. And guess what? They're eating your cheese! (Or heck, even something a little closer to home understands this!)
Yeah and how long did it take Microsoft to come around, kicking and screaming to this intractable truth? Literal decades as Microsoft hemmorhaged mindshare and saw other technologies - yup - eat all its cheese. Nobody asking for first-class Linux support in a multi-platform UI toolkit is asserting that it commands dominant desktop share. What people are trying to say is that giving Linux a first-class seat at the table is an action that will demonstrate Microsoft has finally outgrown Windows and can be trusted.
This statement is misleading because at its core is an omission. So I will again blow the disingenuous whistle. Linux poses a much larger threat to Windows than macOS does because it is a drop-in replacement in corporate and education environments running standard commodoty hardware. The absence of Office for Linux is in fact the perfect example of how Microsoft is deliberately trying to kick the legs out from under any of their desktop technologies drawing attention away from Windows. Microsoft hasn't published any headless render libraries for Office technologies. Microsoft is rushing out a Chromebook competitor instead of publishing first-class Chromebook software - and no, Office for Android has less functionality than even the browser version! This jealous attitude of neglect or pointing at non-answer alternatives is what drives people away from Microsoft and keeps its technologies failing, time and time again! Heck, it's even toxic for people who are already using Microsoft services. We are using Azure at my company but have had so many frustrations because of this stubborn Windows-SQL-Server-only exceptionalism that we actually have put migrating away from Azure on our radar. Microsoft does it to itself when it tries to act principled about this stuff. Actions speak louder than words here, and Microsoft's behaviour belies its true intentions, completely in spite of all the marketing. Indeed, sometimes it even undoes what small hard won gains have been acheived so far! What People Really HearWhat Microsoft is saying with maui is that Microsoft wants to create a UI toolkit that is multi-platform (but not really) and then somehow grow adoption by lecturing people about what kinds of platforms they ought to use because Windows is a sacred cow. The "Microsoft ❤️ Linux" charm offensive has devolved into making Linux sleep in the shed. Loving Linux and capitulating to it are two very different things and if it was the former, then Microsoft would be proactive, not reactive in supporting it. To circle back, it is simply - yup, you guessed it - disingenuous. I shouldn't need to tell you this, you are very community savvy, you know how to Twitter, go check the sentiment towards .net in general. It's clear that Microsoft still has lots of work ahead. Forcing users to quibble over Linux support and making it an uphill battle continues to work against Microsoft's best interests and I just can't for the life of me understand why Microsoft continues to miss this. This is something none of your competitors struggle with, it is exclusively a Microsoft-problem. The only logical conclusion is that there is some component of deception to the whole "Microsoft ❤️ Linux" messaging. I'm fine if I'm wrong, because it benefits everyone. But if that's the case, all Microsoft employees seriously need to have a little poem on the back of their badges about hubris, because it's eating the company from the inside. The SolutionWhen a project is started, particularly anything that goes on in the .net sphere, just default-in Linux as a requirement. Start living up to the "Microsoft ❤️ Linux" message. For maui, this project should reverse its stance and make Linux desktop a first-class promise ASAP. Then it can really be a multi-platform UI library in the non-disingenuous sense and then I can brag it up to other developers as yet one more reason why .net's star is rising. Without linux support, maui is already perceived as yet another cynical attempt from Microsoft to enter a market half-cocked and teeming with stigma. |
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And maybe they should consider porting Microsoft Store to Linux Universe. We could use the store to publish top quality Linux apps and games. It'd be great alternative to boring Steam... Well, since they are working on GUI for WSL, I think it wouldn't hurt. |
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I personally see more benefit in having less libraries and tools but of higher quality. Many times, less is more. on the subject of
It is possible nay, the norm to love something without loving it completely. It seems to me that you believe that unless love is absolute, it is no love at all. Typical black and white binary cult think. |
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Kindly note that Flutter started with Android and iOS and later started expanding to include Linux - which is still not production-ready (not of excellent quality). Why should Linux be priority?
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Flutter got linux support before it got windows support, let that sink in for a moment. By your argument maybe windows support should be lower priority than linux. |
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Because Microsoft should be leading, not following. You're arguing to lower the bar. If you want to be pragmatic, and not just opinionated -- explain why you think that's a sound business strategy. |
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First of all I want to explain that I am the biggest Xamarin and Maui critic here, which the others can perhaps confirm. I'm not a Microsoft developer myself, just part of the community and use the product in my free time, but also at work. Background of the Xamarin ProjectXamarin is primarily to develop apps for mobile devices. This is the product. You don't have to have any doubts about that and say something else. First and foremost, it's for apps. It is a blessing that Xamarin became so successful and that Microsoft will later take over and develop it further. Over the years the environment has been given more and more functions, more and more shape and hopefully it will get even better in the next few years. So much for Xamarin's background. BusinessThe business world is based on Windows. You will rarely see that normal users own a Linux computer. Exceptions are servers and computers used by computer nerds. So the question arises, what do I need Linux support for now? Basically for private applications by computer scientists, government institutions and servers. Let's get back to everyday life. State institutions: Fewer and fewer public computers are used. It is no longer like 20 30 years ago that a computer cost half a house. More and more people own private computers and smartphones, with the proportion of computers for private use falling more and more. In the near future, more and more public computers, such as telephone booths, are likely to be dismantled. Server: Did I mention before, servers don't need a UI. I don't think anyone who wants to use UI's has fully understood the point of being an administrator. Now for private use. Linux is not experiencing a trend. The number of supporting people does not increase or decrease. Then why should you support <1% Community in the near future, since it costs Microsoft more money and does not bring in anything. Xamarin and Maui in the futureXamarin, and subsequently Maui, is currently in a different dilemma. Do you want Microsoft to lead and not follow? Look at the competition, how those with app development overtook Xamarin, even though they are significantly younger. @saint4eva already mentioned it. Flutter did not become perfect overnight. Step by step. So ask the community to wait a bit with something like that. MacOS was previously only supported by the community and lo and behold. The support is taken over personally by Microsoft. And rightly in that order too, since MacOS is supported and used by significantly more people. Both in the world of work and in private. Personally, I also think it's better to work with Flutter than with XF, but I'm a C # developer myself and I wish this project and the team behind it every success. At the right time, I also like to praise their work and also like to do so in the form that I pay for their product and use it at work with umpteen employees, and if need be, I also criticize within the framework of what is possible, because you learn from criticism. Please do not take this as a personal criticism, I just want to say that we have other problems right now that need to be fixed in order to pave the way to Linux and make it easier. Examples of such problems are, it is not called Entry, it's a TextBox! 😂 😂 🙄 |
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Linux growing is a trend, just because it's slow doesn't disqualify it. That perspective is exactly the one MS wants you to take as they work to slowly eliminate Linux from ever reaching it's deserved popularity. |
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All I can do is reiterate that support for Linux shouldn't be driven primarily by how much share you can capture by targeting it. It's an indicator of confidence in the platform and if maui doesn't send the right signals early on, people are going to write it off in their minds. In fact, as a Microsoft technology, you can consider it starting with one foot in the grave when it comes to reputation. After which you'll see Microsoft abandon it in the same way it's abandoned so many other technologies and the project won't exist at all. While Linux desktop usage is low, it is indeed a trend, just one that's very, very slowly growing. And it's a trend that has shown more staying power than the handful of Microsoft technologies that have come and gone over 30+ years. In terms of the merits of supporting Linux for dominance? I say slow & steady 🐢 In terms of the merits of supporting Linux to counteract stigma towards and the reputation of Microsoft offerings? |
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Why not? Because of naïve idealism? Microsoft is a company, they are the ones paying to develop .NET, and as such they get to decide what is the best bang for their buck in terms of expected ROI. This is the reality of capitalism. |
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"and as such they get to decide what is the best bang for their buck in terms of expected ROI." And so do developers, when choosing a cross-platform UI toolkit. One that excludes a popular scientific, academic, and developer, and cloud OS isn't going to get very far with most developers who care about such customers. |
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There is no good cross platform framework that works across the board. There may be some that are cross platform, but from I have seen do not have universal support, or has issues on one platform or another. Setting the standard higher for Microsoft than we hold for others is not a good practice. The only real cross platform I have seen is the likes of HTML/JavaScript frameworks like Electron, but they tend to have limitations as well. Especially when it comes to hardware support for interconnecting with USB, or drives. |
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Just wanted to add that for those that want MAUI to be the best, one way to achieve that is to reach higher standards. Its good to strive for more. I'd argue that setting out to be similar to everything else is pointless. Be the best or stop wasting everybody's time :-p |
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But then they are developing this framework for the developers and they have no right in deciding which platforms the companies using their MAUI framework for developing their own apps should be able to ship their apps to. They should provide support for app development for all the platforms as a cross platform development tool and leave the choice of supporting a certain platform on developers of the apps. All other cross platform development frameworks provide support for that except for MAUI and give this fact it's only reasonable to ask why MAUI is not supporting Linux app development. |
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When I got the email notification about this thread I thought it was literally in response to an email I sent this morning capturing evidence of demand for Linux support in .NET MAUI. I'm listening and planning. Linux support in .NET 6 for .NET MAUI is not planned from us. We are spending our capacity bringing the Xamarin stack to .NET 6, SDK Style projects, and, as has been noted elsewhere in this thread, addressing fundamentals in the UI toolkit. I hear that saying "it's on the community to add Linux support" can sting and disappoint. In this .NET 6 phase of the product it's the current way forward, and to not keep the door open to the possibility of collaboration would send a very different signal. The signal here is meant to be that Linux is a platform on our radar, it is not part of our current scope of work for .NET 6, and we are open to collaboration in the meantime. |
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That sounds like an even handed approach, not that we should start speculating on any chance Microsoft bring us MAUI for linux in .NET 7 but we can always hope ... anyway I think MS deserves no small amount of creds on the work they do, making the complete .net platform cross platform is great |
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You are not open to collaboration, you have a community pull request for linux, You have ignored, It is the oldest open pull request you have. |
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MS is is open to Collaboraton and as ever they are subject to Competition. Platform Uno is on iOS, Android, UWP, Windows, WASM, and Linux. I think they are late. We better stop the bicker and let them get caught up with a small Canadian company (Platform Uno) in a way that they can get it done. |
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Personally I think dismissing Linux is exactly what's happened here. But y'know "out of scope" sounds less BSey so whatever. This isn't a problem with any individuals, it's a problem with MS as an organization, since they invariably try to shut the Linux desktop down rather than support it. |
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Thanks @davidortinau, and I totally hear and largely appreciate what you're saying. For the sake of maui, I hope you understand my point about the optics surrounding Linux support. It's worth your time to continue digging into this because what I think you'll end up finding is that history is a very strict teacher in this situation. If the foundational work is truly blocking this, the better thing for maui to do at this stage would be to at least promise official resources to gain Linux support some time after 6.0. Again, I say this out of a common interest in the success of this project, I like C# and .net and want to see it gain mindshare. Something like maui is key to that. |
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I don't want to sound pessimistic about Linux, but from my experience the user base tends to recoil at the idea of "Micro$oft" providing any service for any of their distributions/configurations. So if support was added would the adoption percentage of the user base (that are actual developers) even be worth it? I am a huge fan of what Microsoft has provided us for UI development on the major platforms that our customers actually use. I, for one, really appreciate that Microsoft continues to support us just like the Linux community supports itself. Unfortunately, that self-support means that there is no clear target for Maui to even promise support for. Every Linux user seems to have their own favorite flavor and their own idea of what open-source should be. Take the OP's comment... They obviously want support (which I can sympathize with), but the OP is just one of many strong opinions on the subject. Microsoft can only wait around so long for someone to finally say "ok". What Linux really needs is a distro that promises to work furiously towards building support for Maui into their own system, not the other way around. Then Microsoft would actually know what they were developing for and might be comfortable building a roadmap. Until then it is just an unknown wilderness where the native tribes don't want you stomping around. |
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MAUI supports macOS without any involvement from Apple. While I'm sure the community would be happy to help develop MAUI and provide QA in the form of issues and PRs, saying that a distro needs to support it and not the other way around is absolutely ridiculous and, to me, anti-Linux and dismissive. Honestly everything about how you've portrayed the community is wrong. People in the Linux world just don't like Windows, most wouldn't care either way if MS made a nice framework for it, and many would use it, like myself, as .NET is very fast for a cross platform dev environment. The fragmentation argument hasn't worked in a long time. Just target Ubuntu and call it a day, no sane Linux user would hound you for that. Nobody wants MS to support every single distro, we just want at least one working and then the community if they want can figure out the rest. |
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I think fragmentation is an issue especially with something like a framework. There would be dependencies. For something that is used to build software that is an issue. I agree I would rather see some support like we only support Ubuntu for now, but I am sure the Linux community as a whole would complain because no matter what MS does is always wrong in the Linux community. Just look at some of the comments in this thread to prove that point. |
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Fragmentation is only an issue if you stupidly declare "we support Linux" with an implied "in general" at the end. Simply don't do that and it's easy to avoid the problem. Just support Ubuntu, or Ubuntu and Fedora. And sure, some people are going to instantly say whatever MS does is wrong (which isn't entirely undeserved they really loved to fuck over Linux users in the past), but most aren't in this group. They are a vocal minority, nothing more. |
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Linux community isn't actually toxic towards Microsoft as much. Most of the time they are just giving very valid criticism. If you ask me, I am criticizing MAUI for not supporting Linux app development because all the other cross platform app development frameworks does and it's clearly possible for MAUI to do it as well. I don't see anything in my criticism which could be seen as hating on Microsoft without reason. If you don't want to support Linux when everyone else of your competitors are supporting, and don't even want to give a valid reason for your decision, you are going to get hate. It's not because of any prejudice, it's because of your irrational decisions. |
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@atrauzzi What am I saying all the time. 😂 😂 |
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I honestly tried, but nothing I said here is a lie.
There was even someone who commented that he created a framework for Avalonia for a routing system, but I'm always wary of using things that aren't official for the framework I'm using. If I'm wrong, please enlighten me as I want to use it. |
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without linux gui support, maui is not called maui! Microsoft said oh we love linux, but they don't give a chance on linux users, they don't care, and they do not have a plan. ps the maui linux community support is a joke. |
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Visual studio for linux is a good start |
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visual studio for mac is done. |
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@m2nlight not so - Microsoft is simply saying we must use vscode. they recently released an improved extension for doing C# dev in vscode, so that's where all the effort will go now. personally I use rider so don't need vsformac - but Microsoft is not abandoning Mac or linux - just putting all there effort until vscode for them |
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@Xyncgas I don't think Visual Studio on Linux is feasible, unless they port the Mac version to Linux. The Windows version is too tied to the OS to realistically be ported. I would love to see a unified VS though that works on Linux, Mac, and Windows. So far I have a Mac that I have parallels on that I can use VS on. Or you could use Rider or VS Code. A lot of people have used and like Rider. I just started messing with it and it feels familiar but has a transition period. @charleypeng A lot of things that MS has is cross compatible on Linux, but not all. Where is the Office for Linux as well? I think that would be more beneficial for them to do. It would actually help Linux a lot too I think since that is the one major component missing from Linux desktop. Honestly I don't know if we will ever see everything run on Linux unless there is a universal UI like MAUI. It will take time, but from what I gather as big as MS is they don't really give a ton of resources to the dev teams. There main focus is cloud and office since that is their main revenue source these days. Development is an afterthought. I also think that if MS has a flavor of Linux, they would be more inclined to make MAUI Linux compatible. Do you think the Linux community would use an MS branded distro? Or do you think we would hear the nonsense of embrace, extend, extinguish? |
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I know of this, but it isn't really a publicly released distro, but used internally at MS for cloud infrastructure. This is not equivalent to Ubuntu or Redhat as it is not something I can really use or have support for. |
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A better option would be to just try and use VSCode for linux instead |
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Do you think that because of some of its architectural decisions, like the immutable base? https://fedoraproject.org/kinoite/ is the same in that regard, I believe. Indeed, its purpose might not be for daily use, but I don't know of any reasons why it couldn't be used for that. The primary reason why it is isn't being used for such, however, is simply because the larger Linux distributions are simply superior due to their userbases and consequent community support. By the way, I won't see your responses unless you tag me. I'm not subscribed to this discussion. |
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@shainegordon I think it might be better to think in terms of developers, not just existing C# developers. What percentage of software developers are on Windows, MacOS or Linux and especially if you include those who work on WSL under Windows. You might be surprised to find that the 2-3% Linux market share is disproportionately represented by software developers. When IE6 was languishing, Mozilla was used disproportionately by IT professionals... then it spread like wildfire. Then Google/Chrome came on the scene with better UX and took the leadership position. That's a lesson that cannot be understated here. Supporting Linux for MAUI would be an opportunity to take the lead on UI software development as a whole, not just in Windows or even non-linux cross platform. As it stands, leaning on Electron, Tauri and similar solutions seems to be the direction many are headed... There's also Flutter and a handful of others. But as it stands no clear leader in the space, which is as diverse and divided as ever. |
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For now we're using Electron.NET in our templates to have our web UI in Linux, but we really hope to use it from .NET MAUI one day. |
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But what about F# I can appreciate if the new extension was for .NET instead of C# |
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A quick google suggests - https://ionide.io/ for F# |
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If you watched the youtube video, it has a lot features like solution manager etc, you mentioned ionide, but doesn't change how my opinion is about if the new extension was for all .NET language instead of C#, it would be better because it has a tons of features as a quick look at the video would suggest : the new extension makes developing C# feel better but it would be great if it supports other .NET languages so people can consider switching to using vsc |
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microsoft is driving backwards by doing things like dropping Visual studio for mac, you can't mix c++ with C# in same solution / file without visual studio level of IDE & tooling experience, it is the cross platform age |
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Real cross platform is vscode.VS4Mac is actually Mono Develop,it doesn't have a lot to do with VS for Windows.So it's not possible to do a mix of C++ and C# |
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Hot takes: If you ever used "Visual Studio" for Mac, you would actually know it is just Xamarin Studio/MonoDevelop behind the scenes, which you actually never have the authentic Visual Studio experience ever, and would go to use Rider/Visual Studio Code instead. You clearly never used Mac if you think killing the so-called "Visual Studio" for Mac is wrong. |
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Bottomline : use Rider - the best fully cross platform, identical on Linux, macOS, and Windows, .net IDE |
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My own limited experience with VS for Mac is that it wasn't very good at all. Rider was better, but I preferred VS Code as I used it for a mix of projects. |
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Do we have any updates on this? |
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They are different technologies. Avalonia uses Skia as the UI control layer which allows them draw the controls. Skia is developed by Google. Skia allows Avalonia to focus on the API part and not have to build the renderer for the controls. This is probably the biggest part of the app. Also I do not see Microsoft using Skia internally and take a dependency on a competitor. To say they are a small team that is outperforming Microsoft is disingenuous. Also MAUI was made by Xamarin first which was built as mobile first. It also is native rendering and not a common renderer. This means there are no external dependencies. Each renderer is built specifically per platform. This makes MAUI look more natural on the platforms and take advantage of the features of each platform. Since the controls are not universal it has a more natural look on the platform. The component that is missing on the MAUI side is probably the hardest part to write. That also brings us back to the argument of what is native on Linux. GTK or KDE or some other lib. The way MAUI renders they would need to write multiple renders to support Linux since there is no common one to use. They could write a 'Linux' renderer that supports GTK or KDE. Microsoft also doesn't have its own mobile OS or Linux desktop OS. Google does well they did have an inhouse Linux desktop distro, but not any longer. So I would say they have more engineers that are in the Linux space than Microsoft. |
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Do like us, use Flutter. |
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GTK and Qt are UI toolkits like MAUI, not windowing APIs. Native on Linux is relative to the display API, of which there are 2: XLib or Wayland. Both speak OpenGL. You only have to support XLib to render properly on both thanks to XWayland. Yes, it would not be "easy" to write it from scratch, however a single rendering backend would work on every single Linux distribution and desktop environment/window manager. The fact that you even referred to Qt as "KDE" tells me you know nothing about developing on or for Linux. |
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If/when Avalonia provides an actual rich edit control, instead of just pointing people to AvaloniaEdit, I'll revisit it. |
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I do not developer Linux desktop application but have developed for Linux containers and cross platform mobile apps. Not sure if that is enough experience. Saying I have no Linux development experience is pretty narrow minded for you to say. If we want to get technical Linux is kernel and can mean many things from mobile, to embedded, server or desktop. So Linux could be considered partially supported. Linux itself isn't even an OS unlike BSD. With that said this discussion should shift to supporting Xlib instead of Linux or whatever other library can be used to draw. I think the issue is that MAUI aims to draw native windows and controls. What this means and what would be supported is very gray when supporting Linux desktop. |
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MS is extremely arrogant，MAUI will fail if it don't support linux desktop，and now it still use difficult and so many bugs |
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More and more, I am finding the value proposition for me is moving in favor of Kotlin. The language has many of the features that attracted me to C# (I miss LINQ, but oh well), is much easier to unit test (no interface hell), has a first class IDE with IntelliJ, and a true modern multi-platform UI framework with Compose (Desktop and Mobile), leveraging all the rich components, documentation and support of the Android community. Even if you don't want to use Compose and the MVI paradigm (which is really cool), you can fallback to JavaFX, Swing, GTK, et al. And with Kotlin JVM/Native/JS (and now WebAssembly support with GC), you can use it pretty much everywhere. |
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next linux-gtk draft is here: jsuarezruiz#66 |
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GTK is not the UI toolkit I would have chosen to bind to, given it's extremely strict ideas on how exactly a window/application should look and it's developer's willingness to ignore any 3rd party developers to cater to the needs/wants of the Gnome desktop/apps. |
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YESSSSS 🚀 |
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It was 2024, Microsoft integrated artificial intelligence wherever possible. The time will come when it will ask: |
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I just gave up. |
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Any hopes? :( |
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are you giving hopes to people |
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I'm not happy to say that, but .NET is focusing on being the 1st cloud native framework; MAUI has no place there. |
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watduz cloud native even mean |
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So finally it will be here ? :O |
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gtk and qt support would be great, but this response really puts a damper on any hopes: #9522 (comment). maybe we need extension points in maui core so folks like @lytico can make a meaningful impact, @mattleibow? i refuse to buy into the "microsoft does not acknowledge linux desktop" narrative, especially with https://github.com/microsoft/wslg existing. |
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Currently I understand one thing ... Avalonia and Flutter takes other approach, they using rendering on canvas (using Skia or DirectX or Metal), it means they need to support N components and M binding for native canvas on each platforms, it mean N + M supported components ... N + M << N * M For example 10 components for 5 platform (Windows 10, MacOS, Android, iOS, Ubuntu) N + M << N * M: 10 + 5 [15] << 10 * 5 [50] If Microsoft took approach with rendering on canvas like Avalonia did, than they would need to implement only renderer on native canvas and that is all !! Unfortunately, now I think that this project do not have a future (: |
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No, if it drawn on canvas, it take only support of native binding to canvas on each platform |
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i am referring to each drawn control's styles (button, textbox, etc) |
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Style for single theme would look the same on each platform |
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People who are asking people to vote doesn't make sure everyone voted |
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If you are building a new app, you are not dealing with users previously used the app, the expectation is it's unexpected what you are showing and it's an opportunity to show the branding and it's an opportunity for communicating the message with people through the freedom of design that non native controls brings |
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Any hope for MAUI on Linux? We need it for IoT and other things. We’re in love with C# and the tools it provides, but it’s crucial for many projects. I understand that the company allocates resources where it sees fit, but it would be interesting if they made their decision about MAUI for Linux desktop transparent, as it would be a significant step to use a single language to focus on business logic and expand our ecosystem. We have a lot of growth potential, and the last thing we want is to switch to Kotlin. However, if Microsoft doesn’t push MAUI towards Linux as a target, we’ll have no choice but to look for a complete alternative that works :/. |
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You don't need to switch to Kotlin. You can keep using .NET as there are other projects that provide the ability to build for Linux. Check out Avalonia, it works on both desktop and embedded Linux. |
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https://platform.uno/ and https://avaloniaui.net/ are both great options. |
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If you want to use native styling for your app (like you would achieve with Maui), take a look at Eto.Forms: https://github.com/picoe/Eto Otherwise your only other choices would be Avalonia and Uno Platform - which hav its own style engines and do not integrate into the various desktop environments but it supports Android and iOS. |
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Any news about. Net Maui Linux |
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no. nothing happened since april, see: https://github.com/users/jsuarezruiz/projects/5 |
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I think it will only happen if some 3rd party company invests and contributes. Which is very unlikely, as those with the ressources and know-how already have their own frameworks like Uno, Avalonia, ... |
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use photino, it's a way way better replacement to MAUI and it works on linux, includding letting you run Blazor on linux as if MAUI.Blazor was runnable on linux It's ultra memory efficient on linux too If you are already building MAUI.Blazor it works on linux as it would on windows, that's photino's advantage, meanwhile you can build applications using photino as if it's MAUI but now run it on linux or windows it's your choice |
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I would normally have been quite excited to hear about maui. But knowing that Microsoft gets colder quarter after quarter on "we love Linux", the official take so far here comes as no surprise.
Nobody is going to come and completely reimplement one in a long streak of desktop SDK+library flops just for Internet points. Especially one that has been so obviously neglected due to internal policy. Moreover if Microsoft really wants maui to succeed, then they should know that lack of first class Linux support is basically what will ultimately hold it back.
Not because the telemetry and feedback indicate it, but because until it's truly cross-platform, Microsoft is still sending the "We want to lure you into Windows" signal.
I also want to comment on the official responses to calls for Linux support. For a company trying to push such a progressive agenda, gaslighting Linux users by "explaining" that because Linux is open source, the only way to have Linux support is from the community is frankly cruel. As is railroading conversation about this out of sight into the discussions area where it can be safely ignored.
As clever of an answer as it seems, here's how people see the situation: Android is open source too, but Microsoft has spared no expense there for maui. Going the other direction, Microsoft has no problems maintaining .net for Linux and look at how much mindshare it's starting to generate (TypeScript indirectly enjoys a similar phenomenon).
So don't be cryptic about things: What is it really and does Microsoft have the courage to be honest instead of trying to get out of a negative perception by being disingenuous.
If you ask me, Linux support should have been the first priority for this project.
cc. @terrajobst -- This is another anti-Linux/pro-proprietary signal being sent in the ecosystem.
Continued...
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