Installing Godot 4 on Linux

The long-anticipated 4.0 release of the Godot game engine is finally out. Sadly, the application is not packaged for any Linux distribution. This short guide takes you through the steps of installing Godot manually.

1. Start off by downloading the latest release from the Download Godot 4 for Linux page.
2. Navigate to the folder containing the downloaded .zip file. In this case, the file was downloaded to the ~/Downloads directory.

   cd ~/Downloads/

3. Extract the downloaded .zipfile. Note that downloaded file's name varies based on the downloaded Godot version.

   unzip Godot_v4.0-stable_linux.x86_64.zip

4. The extraction process should place a similarly name file without the .zip extension in the same directory (~/Downloads). The .zip file is no longer needed and can be removed.

   rm Godot_v4.0-stable_linux.x86_64.zip

5. Move the extracted binary into a directory under /opt.

   sudo mkdir -p /opt/godot
   sudo mv Godot_v4.0-stable_linux.x86_64 /opt/godot

   Note that the binary could be installed directly under a directory resolvable by the PATH environment variable, but this approach allows multiple binaries to be exist separately for testing.
6. The extracted binary file (now under /opt/godot) is likely owned by the current user. This is probably not desired, so the file permissions should be adjusted.

   cd /opt/godot
   sudo chown root:root Godot_v4.0-stable_linux.x86_64
   sudo chmod 0755 Godot_v4.0-stable_linux.x86_64

   This results in the application being owned by the root user and executable by everyone while preventing it from being edited.
7. Finally, install the application under /usr/local/bin to make it callable using a simple application name such as godot4.

   cd /usr/local/bin
   sudo ln -s \
     /opt/godot/Godot_v4.0-stable_linux.x86_64 godot4

You should now be able to start the Godot game engine from the terminal using the following command:

godot4

Ubuntu Application Icon

This step is highly optional, but allows the application to be launched graphically on Ubuntu.

1. Download the official Godot .svg icon.

   cd /opt/godot
   sudo curl -o icon.svg \
     https://godotengine.org/assets/press/icon_color.svg

2. Create the file /usr/share/applications/godot4.desktop with the following content:

   [Desktop Entry]
   Name=Godot 4
   Comment=The game engine you've been waiting for.
   GenericName=Game Engine
   Exec=/usr/local/bin/godot4
   Icon=/opt/godot/icon.svg
   Type=Application
   StartupNotify=false
   StartupWMClass=Godot
   Categories=Development;IDE;
   MimeType=text/plain;inode/directory;application/x-godot-project;
   Actions=new-empty-editor;
   Keywords=godot;
   
   [Desktop Action new-empty-editor]
   Name=New Empty Editor
   Exec=/usr/local/bin/godot4 --editor
   Icon=/opt/godot/icon.svg

3. Adjust the file permissions.

   cd /usr/share/applications
   sudo chown root:root godot4.desktop
   sudo chmod 0644 godot4.desktop