Microsoft’s .NET Core is now making its way to Raspberry Pi developer boards, and an official .NET 2.0 Core is coming from the software company later this year.
The .NET Core for Raspberry Pi and instructions to install it are available on the Github site.
The .NET platform can be used to develop mobile, PC, and server applications and services. The Raspberry Pi 3 board can serve as an entry-level PC or be used to develop smart gadgets, robots, or internet-of-things devices.
Microsoft recently opened up the programming framework for .NET Core, and separate from the Raspberry Pi move, Samsung is adopting it for the Tizen OS platform. Tizen is a Linux-based OS being developed by Samsung used in smartwatches and other devices.
The version of .NET Core for Raspberry Pi is fairly rudimentary, more of a stepping stone to the final version of .NET 2.0 Core. The Raspberry Pi has an ARM processor, and a version of .NET Core is being adapted for that architecture.
“We can confirm there is an ARM32 version of .NET Core out on GitHub,” a Microsoft spokesman said in an email. “It is an implementation of .NET Core that Samsung, Microsoft, and the community are working on. We are making it available to customers … so they can use it on Raspberry Pis, IoT, etc.”
The .NET Core build on Github will work with Ubuntu 16.04 and Windows 10 IoT Core, which are both supported by Raspberry Pi. Support for the .NET Core will be through Github and not official Microsoft support channels, the spokesman said.
“This development work is part of the 2.0 wave of .NET Core, which is coming later in 2017. We have nothing yet to share on Microsoft support for ARM32 outside of Tizen,” the spokesman said.
A Tizen roadmap states that native ARM32 support for .Net Core will come around October this year.
“Samsung will be shipping their Tizen platform on both .NET Core x86 and .NET Core ARM32. They will build their own supported releases of this just like Red Hat builds their own supported releases of .NET Core,” the Microsoft spokesman said.
Customers who want support for .NET Core on the Tizen platform will have to go through Samsung, the same way Red Hat customers would get support for .NET Core on their platform.