Visual Web developer 2005 and Linux

[willebanks]

Howdy all,

My brother has given me a CD on M$ Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition & a monster book on how to use it. I'm not much into programming but I may have a use for this for my job!

I have a M$ Access database which I use at work.I've wanted to be able to share the db with my co-workers but I have been told that Access sucks on a campus area network and the IT people wont install it on any other computers

As I already have a web server, I figured I could host db based web page and my co-workers could surf at thier leisure! I just didn't realize how hard the undertaking would be!

Enter Visual Basic...I'm really sorry to all you hard core Linux people but M$ Access was pretty easy to setup and this Visual Basic thing looks just as easy...the question is can I get a VB web sites to work with Mysql and apache on my Linux box? Or if anyone hear as a better idea on building webpage frontend to an Access database or any other kind of database...but it must be something that a beginner can handle!
I will happily provide any other info that might help!

Thanks in advance

Will

[till]

Have a look at mono, thats a .net implementation for linux. If I remember correctly you can develop webpages in visual webdeveloper and run them on linux. Mysql is supported by .net and mono too, there is a mysql .net connector available on mysql.com.

For developing database driven website on linux I recommend either PHP or ruby on rails.

[busnetdown]

Mono runs Asp.net really well.
You can create websites with Visual web developer and serve them up on a linux box.
C# works really well, you can pretty much copy it right into your linux/apache setup and it will compile.
VB is a work in progress, but if you precompile the VB web app, then it will run just fine.

There is a good tutorial on getting a LAMA (linux - Apache - MySql - ASP.net) server up and running at dotheweb.net:
LAMA: Linux - Apache - MySql - Asp.net - Best of all worlds tutorial (http://www.dotheweb.net/lama)

and information about precompiling VB sites with Visual Web Developer:
Visual Web Developer and your Linux server (http://www.dotheweb.net/lama/visual-web.aspx)