Linux, and Macintosh 

Your Open Dental server can always be Linux or Mac; this has never changed. The discussion below pertains to running the Open Dental client on the workstations.  At times in the past, the Open Dental client program has been run successfully on Linux clients.  We have largely abandoned efforts to maintain the Linux compatibility, and current versions do not run on Linux or Mac at all.  If someone was interested in making it work with Linux, it would probably only take a few months of programming effort.  We are not interested in doing this programming.  So it will either require using our plugin framework, or possibly a fork.  There are significant disadvantages to forking as discussed here on the Programming Resources page.

The most recent version on which Open Dental was running on Linux was 5.6.  The information below is from that time period and has not been updated.  It only remains here for programmers who might be interested in Linux development.

Open Dental runs on the dotNet Framework, a Microsoft technology. It will also run on the Mono framework, an adaptation of dotNet for Linux. So you will need to install Mono before installing and using Open Dental. The flavor of Linux shouldn't matter, but we tested it on Suse 10.3 with Mono 1.2.6. You will need to use that version of Mono or later. See http://www.mono-project.com/Downloads, or you can use the instructions here for a different way of updating Mono: mono.doc.

Installation of Open Dental itself simply involves copying all files in C:\Program Files\Open Dental from a Windows computer directly into a folder on a Linux computer (we used /usr/local/opendental/).

Launch Open Dental like this:
$ mono OpenDental.exe

Try these tricks:
* Make sure FreeDentalConfig.xml is present in the same folder as OpenDental.exe.  You might have to edit this file manually to define the connection.
* Use an ip address at the choose database window if the computer name isn't working.
* It won't be able to find the A-Z folder on a remote computer.  Your choices are:
1. Use Samba, mount a local directory, and point it to the real A-Z folder (at least that's the theory). You'll need to put two paths in the Path box, separated by ;
2. Check the box to not use the A-Z folder at all.   This applies to all computers for now.
3. Use a dummy A-Z folder.  Add that path to the Path box.

Pure Linux:

Frederik Carlier is a programmer who has done some work on the build and installation process for Linux. In contrast to the above copy method for installation, his method uses the source code and does not require a Windows computer.

Here's his Ubuntu page:  http://opendental.carlier-online.be/ubuntu.html

Or you can use his build project that creates Debian packages for Mono and Open Dental.

You can find the packages here:
http://software.opensuse.org/download/home:/fcarlier/

The build project itself is here:
http://build.opensuse.org/

A Linux "package" is very much like a Setup program.

Our understanding is that his installer is currently broken.