Visual Studio 2015 Launches With Its Linux Targeting Support

Microsoft formally launched its Visual Studio 2015 integrated development environment today. While there isn't a Linux version of the client, from VS 2015 there is support for targeting Linux.

Back in April Microsoft released its Visual Studio Code IDE for Linux with a native port (alongside OS X) though this IDE is rather basic. Today they rolled out Visual Studio 2015 officially, but it doesn't have a Linux port.

However, from Windows, here are the capabilities for developers wishing to target Linux from this big update to Visual Studio:

Whether your application is using IaaS or Paas in Azure, built with .NET or Python or Node.js, or deploying to Windows or Linux or Docker containers, the cloud tools in Visual Studio 2015 let you easily integrate with Azure.

On top of this, developers can also use the preview of ASP.NET 5 in Visual Studio 2015. ASP.NET 5 is one of the most significant updates to the ASP.NET platform we’ve done. Because ASP.NET 5 runs on the CoreCLR, it can be deployed to your choice of platform, whether it’s Linux, Mac or Windows.

More details via the MSDN blog.

With Microsoft open-sourcing parts of .NET and increasing its interest in Linux, this newly-added Linux support isn't much of a surprise. Going back several months we've also known of Microsoft's plans for targeting Linux from Visual Studio 2015.

Those wishing to find out more about Visual Studio 2015 can visit VisualStudio.com.