在社区很多人不看好的微软.NET开源实现Mono发布了Mono 2.8，这是一个重要的版本更新，有着显著的改善，Mono 2.8包括C＃4.0的支持（也是现在的默认配置），新一代的垃圾回收器，新的框架，LLVM的支持，目前被认为是稳定的，2.0版本的embedding API ，对OpenBSD的支持，移除了对GLib的依赖，并有.NET 2.0的线程池的异常行为。
新的微软的开源协议的框架包括ASP.NET 4.0，并行框架，System.XAML，System.Dynamic，Managed Extensibility Framework ，ASP.NET MVC2，System.Data.Services.Client，WCF Route和.NET 4.0的CodeContracts。
- C# 4.0
- Defaults to the 4.0 profile
- New Generational Garbage Collector
- Use mono --gc=sgen or mono-sgen to use Mono with the new GC
- New Frameworks from Mono MIT X11 and Microsoft MS-PL/Apache2:
- ASP.NET 4.0
- Parallel Framework: including PLINQ.
- System.XAML
- System.Dynamic
- Managed Extensibility Framework
- ASP.NET MVC 2
- System.Data.Services.Client (OData client framework)
- WCF Routing
- .NET 4.0's CodeContracts
- Performance:
- Large performance improvements
- LLVM support has graduated to stable
- Use mono-llvm command to run your server loads with the LLVM backend
- Version 2.0 of the embedding API
- Removed the 1.1 profile and various deprecated libraries.
- OpenBSD support integrated
- Mono no longer depends on GLIB
- Threadpool exception behavior .NET 2.0
更详细的说明参看：Mono 2.8 Release Notes，我在OpenSuse 11.3安装了下，很顺利就更新到了Mono 2.8，附安装的日志：
linux-4ugu:~> su
Password:
linux-4ugu:/home/geffzhang # zypper addrepo http://ftp.novell.com/pub/mono/download-stable/openSUSE_11.3 mono-stable
Adding repository 'mono-stable' [done]
Repository named 'mono-stable' already exists. Please use another alias.
linux-4ugu:/home/geffzhang # zypper refresh --repo mono-stable
Repository 'mono-stable' is up to date.
Specified repositories have been refreshed.
linux-4ugu:/home/geffzhang # zypper dist-upgrade --repo mono-stable
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
Computing distribution upgrade...
The following NEW packages are going to be installed:
libmono-2_0-1 libmono-llvm0 mono-mvc
The following package is going to be REMOVED:
mono-jscript
The following packages are going to be upgraded:
apache2-mod_mono art-sharp2 gconf-sharp2 glade-sharp2 glib-sharp2 gnome-sharp2 gnome-vfs-sharp2 gtkhtml314-sharp
gtk-sharp2 libgdiplus0 mono-addins mono-basic mono-core mono-data mono-data-oracle mono-data-sqlite mono-debugger
mono-devel monodevelop monodevelop-debugger-gdb monodevelop-debugger-mdb monodoc-core mono-extras mono-tools
mono-wcf mono-web mono-winforms webkit-sharp xsp
The following package is going to change vendor:
monodevelop obs://build.opensuse.org/Mono -> Novell, Inc.
