There is some big news coming today for .NET developers who were keen to work on Linux. That’s because Microsoft and Canonical have announced that they are bringing native .NET 6 support to Linux on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS to both hosts and containers. For now, they are coming to x64 only, but Arm64 is next in line.
The installation will work using a simple apt install command for .NET 6 that will download the necessary packages. In a blog post, Canonical explains how it will work:
.NET 6 users and developers can now install the .NET 6 packages on Ubuntu with a simple apt install dotnet6 command. Optimised, pre-built, ultra-small container images are also now available to use out of the box.
The blog post also highlights the efforts taken by both Microsoft and Canonical to make this possible:
.NET as an Ubuntu .deb package is the result of a close collaboration between Microsoft and Canonical. The two companies are working together to deliver timely security patches and new releases to Ubuntu. This is the foundation for more capabilities to follow for the open-source framework on Ubuntu, for hosts and minimised container images.
Overall, the companies are promising a hassle-free installation, timely security patches and updates, smaller Open Container Initiative (OCI)-compliant containers, and more. For example, the Chiseled Ubuntu image here is going to be 100MB smaller than they are typically known for.
Here is a quick run down of the most important highlights about this release:
.NET developers are now able to install the ASP.NET and .NET SDK and runtimes from Ubuntu 22.04 LTS with a single “apt install” command
Canonical releases new, ultra-small OCI-compliant appliance images, without a shell or package manager, for both the .NET 6 LTS and ASP.NET runtimes
Microsoft and Canonical are collaborating to secure the software supply chain between .NET and Ubuntu and to provide enterprise-grade support
You can find more details on Canonical’s and Microsoft’s blog posts.
