I want to start doing a cross platform project that will run on Linux and Windows.

I went to mono's website to check things out as I heard mono allows me to run c# on Linux, but when I arrived there <http://mono-project.com/Main_Page> I was a bit confused.

The download page allows me to download it just fine but in order to program mono on VS2010 I need to pay for mono-tools or are there any alternatives within VS2010 ?

In short what do I need to be able to use mono with VS2010 and what are the alternatives to programming mono without VS2010 ?