Post

Going Native

Posted
By Cory Smith 3 min read

As I typically do, I’m adding this mainly as a reminder to myself; but others might find it useful.

I’m currently in the process of setting up several machines so that I can play with the native ahead-of-time code compiler functionality in .NET 8.

Of course, this includes a couple of Linux machines; in my case I’m planning on the following (to start with):

  • Windows 11
  • Debian Linux 11 (x86)
  • Debian Linux 12 (x64)
  • Raspberry Pi OS (Arm64)

Why the need for different machines; well, I’d like to do some testing in the real world and see what the experience is like between these different targets. Additionally, as it turns out, it is not possible to natively cross-compile on Windows to target a different platform; so will need to (at minimum) spin up some sort of virtual environment for this process to take place. GitHub actions can certainly be leveraged here and I’m planning on exploring that more as I progress; but for now I’m trying to wrap my head around what is necessary on these physical machines.

Install .NET 8 (Linux)

Since I’m installing on a Debian distro I’m fortunate enough that Microsoft has a helpful document.

Debian 11

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wget https://packages.microsoft.com/config/debian/11/packages-microsoft-prod.deb -O packages-microsoft-prod.deb
sudo dpkg -i packages-microsoft-prod.deb
rm packages-microsoft-prod.deb

And then…

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sudo apt-get update && \
  sudo apt-get install -y dotnet-sdk-8.0

Debian 12

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wget https://packages.microsoft.com/config/debian/12/packages-microsoft-prod.deb -O packages-microsoft-prod.deb
sudo dpkg -i packages-microsoft-prod.deb
rm packages-microsoft-prod.deb

And then…

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sudo apt-get update && \
  sudo apt-get install -y dotnet-sdk-8.0

Raspberry Pi OS

A note on the Install the .NET SDK or the .NET Runtime on Debian document states:

Using a package manager to install .NET from the Microsoft package feed only supports the x64 architecture. Other architectures, such as Arm, aren’t supported by the Microsoft package feed.

This kind of sucks; however, further down on the page are instructions for manual and/or Scripted install. Additionally, I also found Deploy .NET apps on ARM single-board computers; which appears to utilize the scripted install method.

Use wget to download the script…

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wget https://dot.net/v1/dotnet-install.sh -O dotnet-install.sh

Grant execution permission…

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chmod +x ./dotnet-install.sh

Install latest .NET version, including SDK.

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./dotnet-install.sh --version latest

alternatively (as found on the Deploy .NET apps on ARM single-board computers page)…

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curl -sSL https://dot.net/v1/dotnet-install.sh | bash /dev/stdin --channel STS

Environment

You will most likely want to update the environment variables…

I’m using the Bash Shell, so the settings should be located in either ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc…

DOTNET_ROOT

export DOTNET_ROOT=$HOME/.dotnet

PATH

export PATH=$PATH:$DOTNET_ROOT:$DOTNET_ROOT/tools

The following was found on the Deploy .NET apps on ARM single-board computers page.

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echo 'export DOTNET_ROOT=$HOME/.dotnet' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/.dotnet' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Dependencies

These should automatically be installed as part of dotnet; however, may need to done individually if you share (publish) as self-contained application:

  • libc6
  • libgcc-s1
  • libgssapi-krb5-2
  • libicu63 (for 10.x)
  • libicu67 (for 11.x)
  • libicu72 (for 12.x)
  • libssl1.1
  • libstdc++6
  • zlib1g

To install these individually, you can use the apt install command, for example (for the libc6 package):

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sudo apt install libc6

Native AOT Deployment

In order to compile natively on Linux, you will also need to have the clang and zlib1g-dev packages installed.

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sudo apt-get install clang zlib1g-dev

And to publish (compile) your application natively:

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dotnet publish -p:PublishAot=true

For even more details (and suggestions), check out this document.

Targets (RIDs)

It is possible to specify a target platform on the dotnet publish command-line using the -r:*RID* parameter:

Windows

  • win-x64
  • win-x86
  • win-arm64

Linux

  • linux-x64
  • linux-musl-x64
  • linux-musl-arm64
  • linux-arm
  • linux-arm64
  • linux-bionic-arm64

macOS

  • osx-x64
  • osx-arm64

iOS

  • ios-arm64

Android

  • android-arm64

See here for more details.

Notes

As I stated at the beginning, these are just some notes at this stage and not meant to be any sort of a hands-on step-by-step guide.

I’ll probably return to this document in the future as I continue to learn more and fine tune these details as I progress.

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This post is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the author.