Unity (Game Engine) Comes to Linux: Experimental Build Now Available

[Deozaan]

I've been using Unity for a few years now to make all my games for Ludum Dare and NANY. One of the strange things about Unity has been that while you can make a build of a game for Linux OSes, you couldn't actually make your game in Linux because there was no Linux edition of the Unity Editor available. But they've been taking steps to rectify that and now have an experimental build of the Unity Editor for Linux:

Last month, I wrote a blog post detailing our plans for Unity on Linux.  Well, I’m back again to tell you the big day has come; today we’re releasing an experimental build of Unity for Linux!

An Experimental Build

Today’s build is what we call an experimental build; future support is not yet guaranteed.  Your adoption and feedback will help us determine if this is something we can sustain alongside our Mac and Windows builds.

Today’s build is based off Unity 5.1.0f3 and comes with the ability to export to the following runtimes:

• Linux, Mac, Windows Standalone
• WebGL
• WebPlayer
• Android
• Tizen
• SamsungTV

System Requirements

• 64-bit Ubuntu 12.04 or newer (just like our player, the editor will run on most ‘modern’ 64-bit Linux distributions, but official support is only provided for 64-bit Ubuntu 12.04 or newer)
• Modern Nvidia, AMD, or Intel graphics card with vendor-supported graphics drivers

Get download links and more info here:

http://blogs.unity3d.com/2015/08/26/unity-comes-to-linux-experimental-build-now-available/

[Edvard]

Well, if my new PC hadn't croaked before I could really play with this, I would have posted a report.  I can say it did install successfully, and started right up on first run.  I don't run the proprietary video drivers, but it didn't complain.  At that point, I apparently offended my hard drive or SATA controller or something, because it immediately locked up the interface, and I couldn't Ctrl-Alt-Fn to a terminal.  After a hard reboot, a bunch of disk errors and all the system utilities throwing segfaults, I knew something deeper was happening, so I had to return the thing and order a new one.

As soon as I get the new one in and settled and Unity installed, I'll post more. 

[Deozaan]

I haven't tried the Linux Unity editor yet because when I made the move to Windows 10, the built-in Hyper-V stuff broke my 64-bit VMs from working in VirtualBox and I haven't figured out how to get them working again. And while my netbook is currently set up to dual-boot Linux & Windows 10, it's a really old, slow machine that could barely run Windows XP, much less the Unity editor for Windows. The idea of trying out an unstable build of the Unity editor on an already unstable device doesn't seem too appealing to me. So please do report back once you've taken Unity for a spin!

This is slightly off-topic, but:

Every so often I say to myself, "You know, the only reason I'm still using Windows is..." and then I'd say the Windows exclusive thing. For a long time it was the games. But the past few years has seen incredible cross-platform support in almost all the games I play, or would want to play. But by then I was using Unity pretty heavily for my development, so I said "I have to stay on Windows to use the Unity editor."

But maybe soon that will no longer be a valid excuse. Will I someday boot into a Linux distro as my primary OS? I'll probably always have Windows as a dual boot or at least a VM for the foreseeable future, but it doesn't seem too far fetched that I may indeed be using some form of Linux as my daily driver.

[Deozaan]

Looks like they've released a new experimental build for Linux:

Hello lovely people! We have prepared a new build for you. Links and release notes below. Happy testing!

Build #2015090301

Official Installer for 64-bit Ubuntu Linux:
http://download.unity3d.com/download_unity/unity-editor-5.1.0f3+2015090301_amd64.deb

Unsupported Installer for Other 64-bit Distributions:
http://download.unity3d.com/download_unity/unity-editor-installer-5.1.0f3+2015090301.sh

Release Notes

• Fix login autofail for some users (depend on system libpq5, don't ship conflicting libs)
• Allow mouse capture in game view
• Fix context menus in Animator window
• Allow interaction with game view header UI in play mode
• Set default new-project location to XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR

Be sure to check out the full post for system requirements and dependencies, etc.

[Edvard]

OK, so I've been able to install and play with this, and I can say it works very well.  However, there's a few bugs that I'm not sure are just me or Unity, because other folks haven't reported the same errors.  I'll wait for the next release to try again...

[Deozaan]

We're you trying out the build from this past Wednesday?

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/unity-on-linux-release-notes-and-known-issues.350256/#post-2298239

[Deozaan]

Aw, carp! I was just going to install this on my netbook to test things out, but they only have 64-bit builds and my netbook is 32-bit.

[Deozaan]

They've got a new release for folks to try out:

It's been a while, but hopefully it will have been worth it.

Build #2015101801

Release Notes

• Update to Unity 5.2.2f1
• Avoid crash when creating input context fails at startup
• Make WebGL build output directory layout match the one generated on other platforms
• Don't leak file handles when communicating with external processes (e.g. audio importer)
• Known issue: There's a small regression in cursor offset handling in the game view

If I'm reading it correctly, it looks like this build is about a month old (2015-10-18), but they just barely got around to posting about it. Weird.

[Edvard]

Aaaaaand it crashes.  This time it doesn't even get past signing in. 

I've put in my bug reports, but I'm beginning to think Unity just isn't going to work for me, at least in this iteration.
Maybe next time :shrug:

[Deozaan]

New release available:

Build 2016010601

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/unity-on-linux-release-notes-and-known-issues.350256/#post-2453359

[Deozaan]

The Unity Linux editor has come a long way as far as catching up with the latest Unity release. Yesterday Unity 5.3.3 was released for Windows/OSX platforms and today the 5.3.3 version of the Linux Editor is available:

Build #2016022301

Official Installer for 64-bit Ubuntu Linux:
http://download.unity3d.com/download_unity/linux/unity-editor-5.3.3f1+20160223_amd64.deb
(sha1sum e31b684d14d890f09073d57ca1f07a96a8814265)

Unsupported installer for Other 64-bit Distributions:
http://download.unity3d.com/download_unity/linux/unity-editor-installer-5.3.3f1+20160223.sh
(sha1sum 3e6129bcc195303773896ddf667db2f9df4c5fd3)

Torrent (Includes both installers):
http://files.unity3d.com/levi/unity-editor-5.3.3f1+20160223.torrent

Release Notes

• Update to Unity 5.3.3
• Fix importing Unity packages from project browser

[Edvard]

It runs for me as of the last iteration, but only up to a point.  After signing in it tells me that my video driver (open-source Radeon driver; the official Catalyst and Crimson drivers give me no love at all...) doesn't support a high enough version of OpenGL. 
One of these days I'll snap up an affordable nVidia card and see how that goes.

[Deozaan]

It may be useful for you to peruse the relevant forum. Maybe others have experienced the same issue and somehow found a solution that doesn't require buying a new GPU.

[Deozaan]

Neat! Once again the Linux build is just a day behind the regular releases:

Unity announced/released Unity 5.3.4 and an open Beta 5.4 yesterday, and today both are available to test on Linux.

Build #2016031601

This one's a double feature!
Yesterday at GDC, we announced public beta access for Unity 5.4, and you won't be left out!

Official Installers for 64-bit Ubuntu Linux:
5.3.4f1: http://download.unity3d.com/download_unity/linux/unity-editor-5.3.4f1+20160316_amd64.deb
(sha1sum
e855743ec80241f54db3a349b3a68a93365c20dd)
5.4.0b10: http://download.unity3d.com/download_unity/linux/unity-editor-5.4.0b10+20160316_amd64.deb
(sha1sum b29f9d8fe9bcbfe5d1759003c10e66aa66e54f8a)

Unsupported installer for Other 64-bit Distributions:
5.3.4f1: http://download.unity3d.com/download_unity/linux/unity-editor-installer-5.3.4f1+20160316.sh
(sha1sum
98cc96e82c5d8703c954ebcdffc392c5e790b5cd)
5.4.0b10: http://download.unity3d.com/download_unity/linux/unity-editor-installer-5.4.0b10+20160316.sh
(sha1sum 8465fee80eff49595a0f172ce77d35398423dd74)

Torrent (Includes both installers):
5.3.4f1: http://files.unity3d.com/levi/unity-editor-5.3.4f1+20160316.torrent
5.4.0b10: http://files.unity3d.com/levi/unity-editor-5.4.0b10+20160316.torrent

Release Notes: 5.3.4f1
Update to Unity 5.3.4 (includes lots of OpenGL Core fixes for linux)

Release Notes: 5.4.0b10
First 5.4 release for Linux: see main release notes at http://unity3d.com/unity/beta