How does Mono for Android work?

I am interested in how Mono for Android (by Novell) works.

My biggest question is around th开发者_开发问答e actual runtime's that are used. Is MfA providing a Mono runtime that wraps and calls down to the Dalvik runtime or is the Dalvik completely bypassed in this operation? Is it something else completely?

I am curious because I hear that the Mono runtime has better performance on mobile devices (not that I believe anything I read on the internet...), and really I am just trying to understand the whole thing.

Any other general knowledge on the topic of comparing and contrasting Mono/Dalvik runtimes would be appreciated.

Thanks!

It's both! Some things are run directly in Mono on the kernel and some things get passed into the Dalvik system.

http://mono-android.net/Documentation/Architecture

Link to site provided by @trutheality is already dead.

Newest version of Mono for Android would be found here: https://developer.xamarin.com/releases/android/mono_for_android_4/mono_for_android_4.4/

It's seems to be a bit out-of-dated version as it has support for earlier Jelly Bean Android version. Nowadays, MonoDroid is called Xamarin.Android and now it's in 6.0.1 version.

but there are no official information how compatible is it with MonoDevelop IDE or how it works on Linux.

I sent today a message about it to Xamarin. Hope they would explain me clearly how it nowadays looks like.