Getting started with DotNet Core

Xavier Geerinck -

I wanted to get started with Machine Learning, but rather than using Tensorflow, I wanted to take a different approach and use ML.NET. Now you might ask yourself: "Why use .NET if you have something such as Tensorflow in Python?". Well, my preference goes towards languages containing brackets (C#, JS, …) rather than having pure identations (Python), making me want to try .NET Core for this.

To summarize my setup that I am working on for this article, it looks something like this:

  • Ubuntu WSL (use wslconfig.exe /l to view your distros, use do-dist-upgrade to upgrade your distro)
  • VSCode

Installing .NET Core on Ubuntu WSL

Since I am a fan of the WSL, I prefer to do everything in WSL rather than in windows. Why? It's just easier to use Linux commands most of the time, and seeing that I am coming from a Node world, I am used to it.

Let's get started installing .NET Core. This is quite easy, seeing that we just have to follow the original guide written by the Microsoft team (see references).

# Register Microsoft key & Feed
wget -q packages-microsoft-prod.deb https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/16.04/packages-microsoft-prod.deb
sudo dpkg -i packages-microsoft-prod.deb

# Generic
sudo apt-get install -y apt-transport-https
sudo apt-get update

# Install dotnet core Runtime
sudo apt-get install -y dotnet-runtime-2.0.7

# Install dotnet core SDK
sudo apt-get install -y dotnet-sdk-2.1.200

Testing our installation and creating our first Hello World application

To test our installation, follow the commands below to create our first program

# Create a new console application project
# This will create our project file + dependencies to build the console app
# It also creates a Program.cs entry file
dotnet new console

# Download our NuGet packages
dotnet restore

# Run the application
dotnet run

We can also manually build and run our application, which gives us a faster execution time once it's build. To do this, utilize the following steps:

# Build the application
dotnet build

# Navigate to our Output dir defined in bin/Debug/netcoreapp2.0/HelloWorld.dll
# Run the application
dotnet HelloWorld.dll

Whereafter we can now see the following output:

Hello World!

If you followed everything correctly, you should have something like this in your terminal:

![../dotnetcore-helloworld.png)

FAQ

Q: When installing, I get an error regarding unmet dependencies.

A: Run lsb_release -a and see your ubuntu version. Then check https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/linux-prerequisites?tabs=netcore2x for the installation commands for your version.

References