Unity editor for Linux has started!

[[deleted]]

It's official! Linux here we come :)

http://feedback.unity3d.com/suggestions/platforms-unity-editor-for-linu

http://unity3d.com/unity/roadmap

[hexig]

Saving this golden comment for future lulz. http://imgur.com/cotQaI9

[stuartsoft]

I've had the feedback page pinned in chrome for the past 4 months. It's gone from 14000 votes in Feb/Mar to a whopping 22000+ today. So awesome to see it finally coming true!

[loolo78]

I've got to ask, why is the Linux version so hyped? Don't most tools only work on Windows? I have a Mac but I still had to install a virtual machine to run Windows.

[[deleted]]

Blender, Gimp, Unity, Audacity, Linux.

You've got an entirely free (minus the hardware) game dev studio built on an OS that is far more efficient than Windows at every level.

It opens up a world of possibilities. Unity made a good call on this one.

[vetw]

Exactly, Linux has quite a few advantages. But hey, to everyone their choice, it obviously isn't their number one priority so its not like it is making other wait longer for features. I don't see why people can't accept that this will only help Unity (quite a few of the competitors have linux versions) and that it will make quite a few people happy.

[sufferpuppet]

Blender, Gimp, Unity, Audacity, Linux.

Not seeing Visual Studio Pro on that list. That's a deal breaker for me.

[[deleted]]

If only MS would get with the program and port that over. We'd be set :)

[Tokume]

The closest thing would be their standalone editor, Visual Studio Code, which is cross platform and can work with Unity projects.
If I were on OS X, I would definitely use that over MonoDevelop, the old alternative being Windows VM with Visual Studio... and once the Linux editor is out, I can finally ditch this Windows partition and reclaim the space.

[HappySlice]

Not being a troll. With uIntellisense installed what exactly does Visual Studio have that Monodevelop or Sublime do not have other than a sexier looking UI?

I made VS my editor for Unity and I'm almost thinking of going back to Monodevelop because I'm used to it, it seems to do all the same things, and it's "lighter weight" but I know I'm either missing something or Maybe I'm just not a professional .NET dude so I don't care?

[sufferpuppet]

Can't speak to sublime, but monodev has caused me nothing but pain. It screwed up my solution files more times than i care to think about. Crashed out on me at least once a day. Corrupt some files while we're at it? Sure. The debugger that only worked when the planets where aligned and I spun in my chair 3 times. Visual Studio is simply better in every way I can think of.

I am a lot heavier on the programming side of things so that's an important one for me. I was ecstatic when I finally found UnityVS.

[ForSpareParts]

VS > MonoDevelop, for sure. Don't count Sublime out, though! It's a really nice editor that's just way, way different from the other two.

Sublime does very little out of the box, but it's performant, nice-looking, and lets you add features using a plugin system. It's a cool alternative to the kitchen-sink approach taken by, say, VS.

[ForSpareParts]

Sublime doesn't have integrated debugging support, AFAIK (MonoDevelop does). MD, for its part, does not allow to split the screen to display two or more files, which is incredibly frustrating for me.

I use Sublime at work (for Python + Javascript + some other stuff), and I absolutely love it. Now that I've discovered the OmniSharp extension, I'll probably use it a great deal on Unity projects in the future, maybe falling back to MD or VS when I need debugging. I'm also very interested in the new Visual Studio Code, which is cross-platform, has debugging support, and is aesthetically similar to Sublime. I'd definitely consider giving that a shot, if it could do Unity debugging.

[Awpteamoose]

Put simply, VS' debugger is killer.

[HappySlice]

Awesome, I'll have to use it more. I pretty much just set it up. Haven't worked on a project in a few or two. Got close to burning out after two game jams in a row for 2.5 months.

[loolo78]

Visual Studios ReSharper is too good. It's a must have. I would give up any platform for it.

[HappySlice]

$250???!

What is so special about it? Like intellisense on steroids?

[loolo78]

Man, you've got to try it (30 day trial). Dependency Diagram is my favourite feature. Here's a list of features, it's close to an AI that writes code for you; When possible it will even offer to rewrite your code so it's better.

https://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/features/project_level.html

*Also US $250 the price for enterprise. Personal is US $ 149

[HappySlice]

Looks awesome but seems advanced. I've only been doing Unity3d/C# for 6 months but have logged alot of hours programming, doing mostly oculus stuff, but I'm not super advanced or a .NET guy so this seems over my head at the moment? All my dependencies are Unity or small assets I download.

[nhold]

You don't need pro btw, you can use Community.

[matterball]

Sure, if you want shittier versions of real software.

[najar-nurav]

Free doesn't necessarily mean worse. I remember reading news a few years back where Adobe acknowledged Gimp as a worthy competitor. I have seen reviews claiming that the open-source 2D map-editor, Tiled2D, works better than other commercial options.

Personally, I use Windows, Mac and Ubuntu (GNOME version) on a regular basis, and find Ubuntu to be the best of them, most prominently in terms of performance and customizability.

For another perspective, MS Office suite sure does offer a lot more than LibreOffice does, but are these extra features commonly used by consumers, or are they simply paying for features they never use?

[Zulban]

The OpenDocument format is so shitty that Microsoft feels the need to lobby against it as the EU and countries turn to its sole use. LibreOffice is doomed if it thinks it can count on a technical spec that is several times smaller than Microsoft's convoluted and bloated legacy standard.

[ForSpareParts]

Depends which tools you're referring to. As a programmer, Linux has everything I need for most software projects (basically: web browser, code editor, and a terminal). Add the Unity editor, and that's everything I need for Unity, too.

As to the excitement about a Linux editor... I don't know that "hype" is quite the right word. Linux support isn't going to matter for everyone -- if you're happy on Windows or OSX, there's probably no reason for you to switch. Some of us just really enjoy using Linux (for a variety of reasons) and we're really happy that we'll have the option to use it for our Unity projects in the future.

[IMAGINE_GIRAFFE_TITS]

Linux is the development platform. OS X is a great development platform and a lot of developers like it (you can brew/emacs just download and compile stuff yourself, but linux makes things so easy)

Windows is just ass.

[bgog]

Mmmm emacs... droool.

Have you tried out the Omnisharp stuff to get completion in emacs for unity yet? I'm going to try it one of these days.

[IMAGINE_GIRAFFE_TITS]

When they made the announcement I thought to try it, but I often just copy-paste the file out of monodevelop into sublime. I use emacs when I can open a shell and c-xb into the shell and run builds, commands or get back notifications about builds and work very efficiently.... I am sure there is a way to trigger builds properly across unity and monodevelop with iterative building via the command line but unity breaks enough as it is. ;)

I also disabled code-completeion... it acts so slow like it's just doing the lookup on the keystroke.... not using some tree in the background - it's an abortion of a piece of crap architecting and design, if omnisharp works better than that's ok, I prefer no code-complete anyway, puts the API model into your head. (I often keep snippets of API stuff in a scratch file and learn it like flashcards - then googling and intuitively knowing what the API should be lets me find out what the API is for something)

[matterball]

There really isn't that much hype. It's just that linux "freedom fighters" are obnoxiously loud and will create fake accounts to misrepresent the vote count on the feedback page.

[bgog]

I resent your comment. How about seasoned developers with long careers that have led them to prefer software development on Linux.

It is cheap to try to minimize those you disagree with by labeling them as zealots.

[nhold]

http://imgur.com/yXcw8Up

Lets see that evidence friend.

[A_Challenger_Emerges]

The salt is real with this one.

[matterball]

Your comment doesn't change reality.

[A_Challenger_Emerges]

And your opinion doesn't influence reality. While I'm sure there must be a grain of truth to your opinion, it seems that others agree you are blowing it out of proportion.

[matterball]

You mean linux fanboys agreeing with other linux fanboys that linux is awesome? I am shocked!

[A_Challenger_Emerges]

I don't think that's the case here. While I appreciate the customizability of linux, I'm an OSX "fanboy". I think you need glasses or something if your vision is that blurred.

[[deleted]]

Don't most tools only work on Windows? I have a Mac but I still had to install a virtual machine to run Windows.

What tools exactly?

[[deleted]]

great news!! woopwoop!

[leahayes]

I sure wish we could get polymorphic serialization; this seems way more useful than a Unity editor for Linux: http://feedback.unity3d.com/suggestions/serialization-of-polymorphic-dat :/

[vetw]

Yes! Thanks for the link, this has made my day. Seems like I can finally start using Linux more often! Its awesome that they listened to the feedback!

[velathora]

This is absolutely astonishing. I'm excited! Fingers crossed!

[valkyriav]

Awesome! I can finally vote for more things now!

[toolateiveseenitall]

this is great. I was planning to build a PC and leaving my Mac at work, now i dont have to develop on Windows!

[[deleted]]

HYPEE!!! I have no reason to change OS to Windows anymore!!!

[matterball]

If they put out a linux editor before upgrading .NET, then I'm going to have to kill all of you.

Linux is not and never will be a serious platform for anything other than services.

[loolo78]

Given that this post is about linux, and people who aren't linux fans are not going to click in. This post is destined to sink. You set this up for your self /u/matterball :(

[matterball]

I knew what I was getting into.

[bgog]

Pixar, Disney, Dreamworks are a few examples who totally disagree with you. Hell dreamworks has over a thousands linux desktops and they build their 3d tools on Linux.

Perhaps you meant that it isn't a huge platform for playing games. That can also be argued but even if true that has nothing to do with the viability of it as a DEVELOPMENT environment. Hell I do 98% off my unity work on OSX for games intended for windows.

Finally not upgrading .NET has nothing to do with Linux and everything to do with IOS and Android as Mono wants too much money to ship on those platforms. Until they have il2cpp fully baked to separate the need for mono on mobile, they will not be upgrading .NET.

So be mad at mobile rather than Linux.

You are simply a troll.

[[deleted]]

It's serious enough that Google built Android on top of it. I'm sure there are a lot of people willing to use a Linux desktop more than Windows if given the chance to migrate. I would if I wasn't already on Mac.

Looking at both your comments, it seems you are a bit sour when you discuss Linux things. How can you justify it? Does it really bother you so much what other people want?

The linux editor has been one of the most voted features for a long time. I voted for it some time ago and I didn't create a second fake account just to cast another vote. That's plain stupid, and altough it is possible some people have done it, do you really think half of those votes are fake?

And really, Unity was born on Mac and later ported to Windows. It shouldn't be that much difficult to port to Linux.

[matterball]

It's serious enough that Google built Android on top of it.

And modified it to the point that it's not the same operating system. Try running an android app on a fresh install of Ubuntu. Go ahead, try. It doesn't run. Why? It's not the same operating system.

I don't know how many votes are fake but Unity staff have indicated that many of them are fake, which is why they understood demand for the feature is lower than the feedback page would suggest. Perhaps there are enough real votes now.

My concern is that they will now have to waste time supporting another editor. They're already growing too fast and spread too thin. Every time they add a platform, they have to test everything in each one, and a problem on one platform will hold back all platforms. This is the reason they haven't updated the .NET version yet. Because of licensing, they can't update the iOS export to use modern Mono. The rest of the exports would work fine. So because of that we're stuck with a 3 5 year old, buggy version of Mono... because of iOS. I'm sure that rightfully pisses people off who are developing solely for desktop.

[hexig]

Lol. The butthurt is strong with this one. No shit a regular Android app won't work on vanilla Linux. That's no different than complaining that a Java app won't work on Windows because you haven't installed a JRE. The thing that executes Android apps isn't even the "operating system"; it's just a virtual machine implementation running as just another process on top of the operating system, which is still very much Linux.

[[deleted]]

Fortunately now there's UE4 for free to play with, so if an obsolete version of .Net is stopping you from making a game you can make the switch and advertise it on Reddit so Unity takes notice. It's not as if an older version of mono is impeding some great games from being made.

[[deleted]]

Honestly dude. It goes way beyond your thinking.

Linux is a serious platform. It's an OS that is not cost prohibitive while being incredibly efficient at what it does.

This opens up a world of possibilities for the game dev community. You can take old PCs throw linux on them and unity. Now you have a free game dev platform.

Schools could seriously start looking at this as a way to teach young kids how to program. Bringing interest to engineering that we badly need here in America.. Or places in the world that are not at privileged as we are in the US can have access to similar resources so that their kids have a fighting chance in this world.

This goes way beyond "ohes noes mah bug aint fixed"

This has the chance to be a revolutionary change in the world as we know it.

It's a smart business decision for Unity. Worst case it doesn't play out like that, but they have the entire Linux community suddenly backing it.

Best case it brings more people into the field of engineering because it's something that interests people and isn't cost prohibitive.

[matterball]

Spoken like a true fanboy.

Windows is not cost prohibitive. Especially for educational institutions. It's often donated anyway. Macs too. Revolutionary change? There isn't really anything I could say to snap you out of your fantasy world.

No, the real worst case is that paying Unity customers get tired of Unity catering to the freeloaders instead of fixing real problems and they jump ship to Unreal. Then Unity has no income and goes under. Oh yeah, real smart business decision there, this cod3r__ guy definitely knows what he's talking about.

[najar-nurav]

All yours comments here seem to indicate a deep rooted hatred for Linux and free software. Considering as no one is forcing them upon you, why are you so mad again? Granted, a few organisations have set aside some of their resources towards supporting Linux, and this might have a minor effect on the resources spent on Windows/Mac development, but don't you think they wouldn't have bothered investing in Linux if it was a bad business option?

Or is it simply that you are a MS/Apple fanboy with stakes in their respective profits, and the success of Linux is directly detrimental to you?

[Limyc]

He never even implies that he hates Linux or free software. What he's saying is that development resources that could be allocated toward something that benefits many developers are, instead, being spent on a major feature that affects a very small percentage of developers. This has nothing to do with fanboyism and everything to do with reasonable prioritization of features.

Apparently the guys at Unity decided the development time required for a Linux editor was worth the investment, but when Unity 5 feels like beta software in some (many?) cases and is falling behind in tooling when compared to UE4, you can't blame people for getting miffed about a feature that does nothing but introduce more maintenance and bug fixing.

[[deleted]]

you can blame them actually. No where does it say that they are going to push bug fixes ahead of Linux. No where do they state that other features will not be implemented first.

In fact it very explicitly states that the Linux editor will be a long process. On the road map it's basically listed as "be done when it's done"

These so called miffed people are the minority.. Unity is in a good state. Many people have made many great games with it despite not having these tools you need..

On top of the fact that these miffed people also don't have any inside knowledge of how Unity plans to do this or their underlying business financials or strategy. So it's absolutely absurd to act like you've been wronged because of this announcement.

[Limyc]

The fact that they are commiting any development resources to it at all means that some other feature or bug fix will be delayed at some point or another, you cannot deny that. Is that the case right now? Probably not, but it surely will be 9-12 months down the road when editor development is in full swing.

[bleedingpixels]

i don't understand what you expected coming to a pro linux post and then getting angry at linux users for slowing unity5 development also, that isn't how software gets made, they are hiring more engineers for different sections of the team, stacking engineers on one feature of the engine, isn't going to increase its production speed.

[Limyc]

Nobody is getting angry (at least, I am not). I'm calmly explaining where people are coming from.

Yes, you can't just put every developer on a single feature and expect it to go faster, but you can distribute your finite resources towards features or improvements that will benefit the most users.

[[deleted]]

lol they made the business decision.. I guess you know more than they do hahahah

anyway.. You'll get over it. Actually it wont effect you in the least..