When will Linux become official?

Unity Engine
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I don’t know if this is the correct place to ask this, if it’s not, i’m terribly sorry.
When is searched for Unity3D on Linux i was pleasantly surprised that there actually IS
a Linux build of the engine. Before that i was planning to use Godot for a 2d project.
I’ve since downloaded the Linux port, and am very happy to report that it works quite wonderfuly on my Arch Linux laptop, using Wayland and bumblebee optimus… Quite an extreme environment for usual Windows/Mac software! But not a single problem so far, works great.

So my question is, since that this build seems to be running quite decent and it’s been in development for over 2 years…when will Linux become officialy supported? Right now it’s all tucked away in some forum post, and theres not a single mention of it on the site anywhere…
Are there any plans for this?

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I’d love to know that too.

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I’d love to know that three.

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2017.1 would be great with Linux becoming official. I’d love to know that four.

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Linux building/export is official, the unity editor is not official (out of beta?).
You guys posted this in the linux editor forums, just wanted to clarify if you meant the editor or actual platform support. Sorry wasn’t clear from above posts…

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So when the Unity Editor are going to be official? It works well and the 2017.x line is a good time to make it official.

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I imagine it’s more about available resources. If they support Linux officially, they’ll need to release a Linux version along with every official version, and delay the others if they can’t. That’s a commitment, and given the current rate of Linux releases (one every 5+ other releases, generally), it’s clear they aren’t in that place yet.

I would expect to see releases in sync with main releases before the Linux editor becomes official. Of course, for our use, the Linux Editor was a large part of the decision to use Unity, so I’d love to see it happen ASAP. We have definitely run into issues with the Linux release lagging behind (e.g: the current build is broken for me, and previous versions are pre-4.5 support, which is a huge blocker right now).

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Yes, you are probably right… If only more people used Linux, at least the same market share like that of Mc OS X.

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I would love a world where Linux is the dominant OS, but until Linux natively runs Windows 10+ apps without flaw with no meaningful performance difference, it will not happen. So that needs solving.

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Apps? Blender and Gimp run on Linux better. Blender is faster in general and Gimp at least starts faster. I can survive without Photoshop and do commercial jobs just like I don’t use MS Office, only LibreOffice even if I’m forced to use Windows (our investors buy for us hardware with Windows). 90% people can live without those “Windows 10+ apps” but they don’t know that and it IS a problem. And Linux developers/communities must get maturated. What we really need is a good Unity Editor for Linux, so it would be great to see the Linux Editor official.

The only problem I see is graphics drivers’ support, especially I mean nvidia. Using openSUSE Tumbleweed is a true pain. Hope Intel will be much better, AMD will improve cooperation with Linux world and nvidia start to treat Linux seriously. The enterprise app I’m now working over will be on Vulkan only. Tested on a few platforms - works great.

By the way, in my country, 5% people use Linux (2017). It is a question of time I think.

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5% people in total are using Linux but in programmers world its much different

According to stackoverflow survey 32.9 % are using Linux Desktop

And 69.6% (top 1) are saying that Linux is most loved platform

I see all major programming platforms are supporting Linux because they know that its important

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PL, you are right :). I have always said, on the Unity forum too, that there is about 30% Linux users. I mean developers because developers are the people who can be interested in Unity3D. But the problem is that game developing is different and focused on M$ only. The graphics driver support must be much better for Linux, especially for rolling releases like openSUSE TW.

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I would argue here. There’s a huge piece of market that belongs to mobile and social nets. None of those market shares belongs to M$, and I doubt that it is really necessary to use M$ Windows to develop for that platforms.

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When I switched to Linux in 2015 losing access to Windows apps was my top worry, too.

Turns out it couldn’t matter less to me. Sublime Text, Blender, Firefox, Thunderbird, VirtualBox, Steam & Krita had native Linux versions. Unity and Unreal Engine, too. All it took in the end was a new Twitter client (Choqok) and a new IDE (JetBrains Rider).

But I expect few actual users will reach this point because the view that switching will be disruptive and inconvenient has historically been true and is hard to get past.

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Windows apps aren’t problems on Linux. The worst thing is that if you do something much more serious than games for children and some day Unity Technologies stops supporting Linux Editor, you will be left with nothing. That’s why, Linux Editor should be officially supported by Unity Technologies and and should be equal to Windows and Mac Editors.

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Why with nothing? With UE4.

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Why? If you have been working over project for example two years and you will be in the future, you will know why. So if UE4, only from beginning. Converting my project from Unity to UE4 is a huge work because it is nto a simple game for kids. And is UE4 better for supporting Linux?

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But it’s better than nothing, isn’t it?

There are some issues with UE4, but it has strong advantage: open and almost free source code. Actually, I can name main disadvantage of UE4 on linux: missing official Epic Launcher with Marketplace.

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the problem about people switching to linux is that virtually no game is supported in linux… im looking im my Steam Library of over 300 games, im looking on my Linux boot and i see maybe 10… 15 games tops that have an install button for Linux, and these arent just random games, most of them are pretty popular and wellknown games, both AAA and Indie…

if games ran on Linux more often, more people would convert

heck, if all games started supporting Linux most of the PC world would probably convert… but that there is the issue, games DONT support Linux, thats why the only real people with linux are programmers

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I haven’t had any trouble with graphics drivers on Linux so far. Bought a GTX 1080 within a month of its release and it ran just fine with the proprietary nvidia drivers, on a multi-monitor setup no less.

Going by SteamDB, 2500 out of 15000 games have Linux support. I’ve been pretty lucky with my own library, most of the games I have work on Linux.

3220083--246805--steam-favorites-1.png 3220083--246806--steam-favorites-2.png

I am a bit surprised that Microsoft can publish a new OS that does heavy surveillance, shows people ads, and downloads whatever change/upgrade Microsoft wants it to - and users just shrug and accept it.

But it’s good that Valve at least put an alternative out there that users can move to and that Valve can push if Microsoft threatens their market with a mandatory Windows Store. As a developer I try side with open distribution channels.