What is the state of the linux editor nowadays?

Hello fellow unity devs,

I've been out of the game for awhile now but I want to jump back in. I used Unity a lot on windows years back, but prefer to run linux normally. I did try using the linux editor a few times but always seemed to run into weird issues when converting my projects over from windows or when changing versions (which i try not to do unless i have to). I also remember having a hard time using two different computers for a project, like using git and doing some work on a windows machine, and then going back over to linux again.

I've looked into other stuff like godot and unreal, but they are even more of a pain to setup on linux and I still seem to prefer unity to those, and I've been using unity on and off for a long time now so it would seem like a waste to switch over now.

So what do you guy have to say about the current state of the linux editor? Is it pretty much a full version now, or would you consider it to still be buggy and weird to use? Are there people using the linux version and releasing full and well made stuff?

 

I think it's generally a case of YMMV depending on distro and featureset you're using.
It's undoubtedly in a better place now than a year ago but there's ever constant issues.

I've got 19.3 running ok on Mint 19.3 but the new 2020 version consumes high cpu on idle which was a problem I had on previous versions as well. It's two steps forward, one back but the overall progress is positive.

Gui on mine still feels fragile. I've got about a 1 pixel wide bar in which I can click to scroll in some windows and I get gui events from one part of the screen affecting other parts. Constant crashes on close. Stuff like that. They're not show stoppers though.

Just have to try it. There's answers to a lot of the common install issues on this forum if you run into any.

 

I'm on Mint 18.3 and so far Unity 2019.3 has been the most stable for me. My biggest frustrations are the jerky movement of UI windows and long times to either create a new project or load an existing project. Building seems to be taking forever. What used to take a minute before isn't even close to finishing after 10 minutes and I just stop it because I'm running out of patience. I do consider the editor as usable because it doesn't crash that often anymore, but still the overall experience is cumbersome.

 

I'm using Ubuntu 18.04 which is a supported distro and it works great, been used it daily for work over a year now with no major issues. The only thing I can think of is the jerky movement of UI windows mentioned above, not a deal-breaker but a little fiddly.

 

I wish it'd work that well for me. I just installed the hub but everytime I create a new project it says "the saved project 5.0" is older than the current version then it just crashes silently. I'm on Debian which Ubuntu is based upon so I was expecting it to work OK.

 

It works great, font rendering can be a little buggy (Unity Hub, Editor is fine actually). I tested on Ubuntu 20.04 and Mint 20 with no problems. And I would like to remark the VS Code + code auto complete (intellisense), completely functional right now on Linux. Performance wise, I really can't tell which is better, Windows or Linux, my computer is a bit old and I don't notice the difference.

 

Bad.

- The official .Appimage doesn't install unity builds on my system, it runs into file permission problems and I will not be running the Unity Hub as root. The unofficial Flathub version installs Unity Editor just fine.

- VSCode auto complete does not work at all, Unity.com install instructions do not work on my system. I have tried Flathub releases, .deb releases from Pop!_Shop, and .deb releases from the VSCode website. None of them work correctly with any Unity Editor install I have tried.

- After the Unity Editor is launched from the .Appimage Unity Hub, it will not open VSCode or any other external editors. The Flathub version of Unity Hub will launch a Unity Editor that will open VSCode, but the Flathub version of VSCode doesn't behave correctly, and still will not auto complete, or even auto error check.

- You CAN NOT use the asset store. "Open in Unity" buttons will do nothing on your system. With no alternate way of downloading anything from the Asset Store, you aren't able to use it, period.

All of this was done on a Pop!_OS 20.04 machine with a 970 and a 4670k.

If anybody can tell me what you did to get any of the above items to work, please let me know. I have tried every iteration of official Unity instructions, they do not work.

 

Works fine for me. I'm currently using Kubuntu. Was using Ubuntu before and it worked well there too.

What do you mean by "doesn't install unity builds"? For me the official appimage works well. To use it you have two options:

• Do a chmod +x on it to make it executable and then just run it.
• Use a third party program such as appimagelauncher to install it properly on your system (this is what I did).

I also used the Flathub version of Unity Hub. It worked fine, except Unity couldn't use any gamepad with it. That was because of a bad permission configuration of the flatpak. I solved the problem by editing the permissions using a program called Flatseal. Maybe the problem have been solved since then.

Works fine for me. I agree it doesn't work if you install VSCode through Flathub (maybe the problem have been solved since I tried it though). But installing from .deb or Snap works fine. Either way, there are other packages you have to install and some configuration you have to do to get auto completion to work. Check some other threads on this forum and you will find instructions about how to do it.

You have to configure Unity and tell to use VSCode. You might have to tell it where the VSCode executable is if it doesn't find it by itself.

Not sure what's this "Open in Unity" button you're talking about, but I'm using the asset store and it works just fine. I didn't try using it through my web browser though, I'm using it directly from Unity and I didn't have any trouble downloading and installing stuff. If you're browsing the asset store with your web browser then maybe that's the problem (like if your browser was installed through Flatpak or Snap it might not have the permissions to communicate with Unity, but that's just speculations on my part).

Hope these will help you.

 

I did that, but when I had tried to install Unity through Unity hub it would complain about not being able to mkdir in ~/Unity/Hub. The appimage will run and launch any installed editors just fine, it just runs into problems when downloading new builds.

Do you know what these are? All of the information I can find is either windows specific, or too old to be relevant.

What version of unity are you using? The LTS and new release versions of the editor will tell me that "The Asset Store has moved, You can visit the Asset Store website from 'unity_version' onwards, and also import your purchases from the Package Manager". The old way of accessing the asset store from within Unity does not work with new releases, and the new method of clicking a link in the Web Browser to open in unity does not work for me. Magnet links open in transmission and augmented steam will open steam from browser as well.

Sorry if I sound like a dick, I've been pulling my hair out for a few days trying to get this to work. When the troubleshooting tips boil down to "make sure you followed the instructions", it can be frustrating.

 

I wanna note that I've had a bunch of issues with building HTML5 for some reason even when I have all dependencies. Sometimes Unity just doesn't get Python to work and throws errors at me, then I restart it a few time and it ends up working out.

Pop 20.04 isn't an offically support distro so it's partly my fault but it's not really the best that's what i'm trying to say.

It works, but it doesn't work well.

 

Sounds a lot like a permission issue. That's weird. Normally there isn't anything special to do about that.
Could it be that you installed Unity as root (or a different user than the one you're using normally) and, as a result, Unity's directory isn't writable by you? There is no need to install Unity as root, and there is no need to run it as root either.

Check here.

I'm running 2019.4.2f1.

Don't worry about that. I know what hair pulling feels like.

 

I'm using Unity 2018.4.18 on Linux Mint 19.3. With almost no problems other the dragging windows and slow build time. I don't use the Asset Store, so I don't know if that works.

I tried Unity 2019, but it didn't seem to work right on Linux so I went back to 2018.

 

@CrikeyM8, we know about the asset store links not opening in Unity. It's definitely a bug on our side

The workaround is to go to the Package Manager and select the source as "My Assets".

 

I've also been bit by this bug while helping someone out with Unity (no game development for me at this point in time yet). However, have you considered setting up a wrapper script for xdg-open. I have some code that spawns a script with the URI when clicking on an Open in Unity button, but I'm stuck on getting this URI back into Unity. Perhaps some joint effort with the devs might help in getting this functionality working. I think there's not much difference in how it would be handled on Windows but currently it's black magic. If Windows also has some sort of adapter application that gets launched and communicates it back to Unity Editor, then it should not be difficult to emulate that on Linux as well. Any input that can be provided @KevinWelton regarding this?

 

From what I can tell, the code we have on that end needs some love. If you want to bump up the priority, the most helpful thing would be to either log a bug using "Help > Report a Bug" or upvote an existing issue.

 

Unity 2020.1.3f1 on Manjaro KDE Plasma 5.19.4. Great performances and no major problems but those ones:
- strange window behavior when resizing/moving the panels
- I can't use the ALT key properly: I have to press ALT, do my stuff (left mouse button to span, middle to rotate, right to zoom) and then press ESC... painful but hey maybe it's linked to my WM. And yes I already tried to remap the ALT key to the META one to interact with the windows.

No problem with the store since I'm using the integrated Package Manager.

I can tell the Linux version has really improved over time and is now a real alternative to the Windows/macOS version.

Oh yes and I gave a try with the last Cinnamon and fractional scaling on a HiDPI display: the Unity UI does scale properly. Great to see this improved as well. It still doesn't handle some scaling informations from other WM - like KDE - but it's on the right track. Good job.

 

On the last release (2020.1.4f1) on Manjaro KDE Plasma 5.19.4 everything is solved: the ALT/META keys now work perfectly. No more UI glitches if you switch from OpenGL to Vulkan in the editor (even if you move/resize the panel, no more distortion).

It's so good and smooth we might consider working on the Linux version starting from now!

Nice job Unity!

 

Just tried installing 2020.1.5f1 and so far has been very solid. Importing my project was pretty quick (eventhough I removed Library folder) and it feels so snappy in the editor. I really like that windows aren't glitching anymore when you drag them around, and the bug I experienced where I couldn't pick a color in the gradient window also has been fixed. I also couldn't move the 'Select GameObject' window if I opened it from the inspector (it would just close itself) but that also has been solved. Really good first impression and glad I tried to see if this would improve the minor inconveniences I had with 2019.3. It does appear the Linux editor is almost ready to become official!

Edit: Also noticed in a build I just made that my FPS counter shows an FPS that is about twice as high as it was before. It doesn't feel like the FPS is higher though, but might have something to do with changes to how deltatime is being calculated and that leads to my FPS calculation showing a more accurate number?