When first tried use Wine it asked me to install .NET packages, and other something for HTML, so i did. Later I delete wine, and few days latter reinstalled it. When I tried to use Wine it didn't asked me any more to install .NET packages. So it means it has already one in my system. When googling, I found that it is recommended to use packages from Software Manager called 'mono', and is unsafe to use packages from Windows like .NET due to virus threat. My question is, how can I delete those .NET packages that Wine has installed automatically? And should I use mono for Wine needs?
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1 Answer
That is two very separate questions. First, wine and viruses. The truth is that when running wine you are allowing windows programs to run inside Linux. In theory this allows viruses too. There are some real limits, for example wine doesn't have direct access to hardware, and it's C:\ drive is just a folder in your home directory, but yes you can get windows viruses this way (at least in theory).
Second .NET v.s. Mono. This is a bit more complicated, but mono is a CLR bytecode interrupter that aims to run CLR compliant byte code. In essence it is an implementation of .NET that works on many platforms (including windows). There are several programs that use mono (Banshee for one) that have nothing to do with windows or wine. Installing mono for wine gives you some extra features. It replaces (in theory) the Microsoft Common Language Run-time. It's closely equivalent to running either Sun Java or Open Java. They both support Java but they are not the same.
So uninstalling .NET inside of wine is up to you. Using Mono instead of the Microsoft CLR executor is up to you as well. It's all a matter of what works better. Take a look at WineHQ for your application and follow the directions there to get started.
Uninstalling Mono, however could hurt your system (or not) depending on if it uses applications built for mono. Again java being a good analogy here. You can remove it, unless some of your apps need java. Again here the choice is yours.
I recommend focusing on getting your application working in wine of that was the target, and worrying about mono v.s. Microsoft v.s. Wine v.s. system v.s. whatever when you have a better idea what wine is, what it is doing, and what you use it for. If your truly concerned about viruses then take a look at clamav. Keep in mind Linux virus land is not the same as windows and there are different concerns.
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thanks for answer. I switched from Windows to Linux near month ago, so i often think in categories of a Windows user. Commented May 14, 2015 at 8:18