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Unity for Android in a Linux Environment
I'm evaluating development tools for some graphical (rather than game) development on Android; Unity looks ideal in that it's fast and portable. I've got plenty of experience developing for Android and I've been through the "getting started on Android" sections but I'm still having difficulty understanding how Unity integrates with the Android build environment.
Our development platform is Linux using the IntelliJ IDE rather than Eclipse. Now, whilst I know IntelliJ doesn't currently support Android NDK development, you can get around this with ant scripts. So, I would expect there is some way to set up an ant build for the Unity NDK components.
What I can't seem to find out is if there is a straight library / set of Java packages I can download to use Unity. Every "Download SDK" link I've tried so far takes me to the Android SDK itself rather than something for Unity Also, the ful Unity development platform downloads only seem to be set up for Windows or Mac platforms rather than Linux.
So, my question is: Can someone point me to a blow by blow installation mechanism for the Unity-for-Android components or give me a definitive answer as to whether one can build Unity apps on a Linux development platform for an Android target platform?
Please don't post comments as answers.
Wouldn't it be the easiest to just install Unity on Windows/$$anonymous$$ac, compile a test project for android and see what the output looks like?
If you want a rather complex example, that is known to run well on mobile, try the Angry Bots example. On Windows, it's installed here:
C:\Users\Public\Documents\Unity Projects\4-0_AngryBots
"Wouldn't it be the easiest to just install Unity on Windows/$$anonymous$$ac, compile a test project for android and see what the output looks like?"
No.
1) If one has a Windows or $$anonymous$$ac machine available with all the appropriate tools, perhaps - We don't. (And are unlikely to at any point in the future).
2) I'm not that bothered about "the output"; I've no doubt Unity produces excellent systems or no one would be using it. I was more interested in what's involved in developing for Unity on Linux or if it's possible at all. Preferably without spending a week messing about and/or reading out of date examples all too common on Android due to the perennial cry of "deprecated" as soon as you compile something. I work about 100 hours a week already and spending more than a day finding out what platforms are supported by a framework means it's already the wrong framework.
3) I always post a 'taster' question on the forum of any major platform we may use to see how helpful the community is or isn't. Also to measure how keen the platform promoters are. $$anonymous$$y view being that you generally get the best help and/or support before you commit; It generally doesn't get better than that.
I thought it was a simple question; sorry to have trespassed on your time.
I am not sure you can build Unity project on Linux, there is no Unity Editor for Linux; try install Unity under Wine. I know you can export the project from Windows as Java (Eclipse) project, than try to use the exported Java project on Linux. I Did not tested that but maybe work.
Why that bitter tone? Your use case is not supported - no wonder that not everyone is jumping on the question. After waiting just a day, your chances are, that probably not a lot of people even understanding what you want have seen this.
Not having exported to Android yet myself, I still know that:
Unity is compiling to mono - see http://xamarin.com/android
If you would like to use their "runtime", this would be another level of indirection with questionable benefits as in the end, they just use openGL like everybody else. There is no magic behind the Unity runtime. The big benefits come from mostly the Editor besides their intermediate API, but you wouldn't want to take that many indirections just to get there.
Your App in Java -> Your API calling mono methods on the unsuported unity runtime that can change anytime -> xamarin abstraction layer -> some xamarin ND$$anonymous$$ -> Java/openGL -> Hardware
I think for what you want, you better look for a lib that gets you closer to the Hardware, like libDGX
Answer by Pendrokar · Jul 07, 2014 at 10:13 AM
give me a definitive answer as to whether one can build Unity apps on a Linux development platform for an Android target platform?
Since Unity Technologies do not offer the Unity Editor for Linux, you may try running Unity with Wine on your Linux development platform. There are even reports of getting the Android SDK to work with it. See the community set up wiki page - http://wiki.unity3d.com/index.php/Running_Unity_on_Linux_through_Wine
Some users at the threat attached to the page mention having Android SDK working.
Answer by jerome187 · Oct 30, 2017 at 02:29 AM
this is old, unity runs on linux and you can build for android also
Can you please provide a link on how to set up unity natively on linux that do not hogs the CPU usage I have downloaded some build from 2017 but it keep eating my CPU 50% of all cores when it is in idle state so it make very hard to do any development on it. I do not favor installing development apps on wine but if that use less cpu and can work with editors like Rider or Reshaper by jetbrains then why not. I mean monodevelop is just poor development environment.