Wine Mono is a package containing Framework Mono and other projects, intended as a replacement for the .NET Framework (4.8.1 and earlier) in Wine. It works in conjunction with Wine's builtin mscoree.dll, and it is not intended to be useful for any other purpose.

To obtain the source code, clone it from gitlab:

git clone --recursive https://gitlab.winehq.org/mono/wine-mono.git

To get to the source code for a specific release, check out the appropriate tag, and update the submodules:

git checkout wine-mono-9.0.0

git submodule update --init --recursive

Source tarballs and binary packages are available at Wine Mono Downloads

To build Wine Mono, you will need the following:

• All of the dependencies of Mono for your native (presumably Linux) operating system, such as autotools, CMake and a C++ compiler.
• Wine, for the winemsibuilder and cabarc commands. A 32-bit Wine is not necessary, despite the warnings when running 64-bit Wine.
• Python, to support the build system.
• libgdiplus, to support Mono's resource compiler.
• Optional: The zip or 7z command, for the tests-zip target only.

When using the Podman build container, only Podman is required on the host machine.

To build Wine Mono, use the msi or bin target:

make msi

To use a Podman container, prepend podman- to the build target:

make podman-msi

If you are building for development, you may find it more convenient to use the dev target:

make dev

This builds a runtime in image/ and configures a wine prefix to use it. You can then rebuild individual .dll files using their filename with no path. Refer to make help for details.

To install Wine Mono, run the generated msi file with msiexec:

wine msiexec /i wine-mono-9.0.0-x86.msi

Please note that if a Wine Mono version greater than or equal to this file is already installed, the command will do nothing. You may have to remove the existing version (using wine uninstaller) first.

If the install succeeds, it won't output anything. You can use wine uninstaller to verify that wine-mono (and the version you expect) has been installed.

Packagers should extract the tarball from the make bin target to /usr/share/wine/mono or the corresponding directory for the prefix used to configure Wine. This should create a directory named something like /usr/share/wine/mono/wine-mono-9.0.0. This conserves space compared to the msi because it doesn't need to be copied into every prefix.

An installed Wine Mono contains the following:

• Registry keys and files in C:\windows\Microsoft.NET, intended to make it look as if .NET Framework is installed. This prevents applications from complaining that it’s missing and ensures that .NET Framework installers do not break Wine Mono by installing their own files. It exists as part of an msi package named "Wine Mono Windows Support". Please note that while Wine Mono should always be removed before installing .NET Framework 4.8.1 and earlier, it can coexist with .NET Core and .NET 5 or later.
• A modified version of the Framework Mono runtime and class libraries, in the "Wine Mono Runtime" msi or a shared location outside the prefix.
• Other supporting libraries that are not part of Framework Mono, in some cases replacing Framework Mono's version, also stored in the "Wine Mono Runtime" msi or a shared location.

Bugs should be filed in the Wine bugzilla with product set to "Wine" and component set to "mscoree".

Patches to the top-level project should be sent as a merge request to the Wine Mono GitLab repository. There is also an official mirror on GitHub where Pull Requests can be sent. This creates more work for the maintainer, so it's not preferred. You may use it if you're on GitHub already and only sending a single request.

Patches to Mono should be sent as a merge request to the Framework Mono GitLab repository. Ideally, most MRs should be for the main branch. If the change is specific to Wine Mono, then the MR should be for the wine-mono branch.

Changes to upstream projects that make sense only within the context of wine-mono and not for the project's general use case should be sent as a merge request to the appropriate fork in the Mono Gitlab organization, on the wine-mono branch.

FNA and related projects have been very responsive to pull requests, and it's worth sending changes upstream to them.

The winforms and wpf projects are not being updated from upstream and have diverged significantly. Since they are supporting modern .NET, which adds new features and is not binary-compatible with .NET Framework, their use case is very different from ours. Any changes should be sent directly to the appropriate fork, but feel free to also send them upstream if it makes sense.