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.
- Start off by downloading the latest release from the Download Godot 4 for Linux page.
- Navigate to the folder containing the downloaded
.zip
file. In this case, the file was downloaded to the~/Downloads
directory.cd ~/Downloads/
- Extract the downloaded
.zip
file. Note that downloaded file's name varies based on the downloaded Godot version.unzip Godot_v4.0-stable_linux.x86_64.zip
- 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
- Move the extracted binary into a directory under
/opt
.
Note that the binary could be installed directly under a directory resolvable by thesudo mkdir -p /opt/godot
sudo mv Godot_v4.0-stable_linux.x86_64 /opt/godotPATH
environment variable, but this approach allows multiple binaries to be exist separately for testing. - 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.
This results in the application being owned by thecd /opt/godot
sudo chown root:root Godot_v4.0-stable_linux.x86_64
sudo chmod 0755 Godot_v4.0-stable_linux.x86_64root
user and executable by everyone while preventing it from being edited. - Finally, install the application under
/usr/local/bin
to make it callable using a simple application name such asgodot4
.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.
- Download the official Godot
.svg
icon.cd /opt/godot
sudo curl -o icon.svg \
https://godotengine.org/assets/press/icon_color.svg - 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 - Adjust the file permissions.
cd /usr/share/applications
sudo chown root:root godot4.desktop
sudo chmod 0644 godot4.desktop