In the previous article, we saw how to to set up unity on linux, and especially on ubuntu-based systems, using apt and snap as package installation sources. However in Arch-based distributions such as Manjaro, there is no such thing as apt, or snap (even though you can install snaps, but it is not out of the box)

This article is not as in-depth as the main concepts are already covered by the previous article.

Install Steps

So, we are now in manjaro, and the first thing we can see looking at unity´s linux forum main thread, there is no official support for linux besides ubuntu and CentOS. Trying to get the unity hub seem to work, but executing it results in it somehow crashing at startup.

Is it over? Not yet! There seem to be people having tried to tackle this already, and down the thread we happen to discover that people from arch’s community have created a package in the AUR (arch user repository) that seem to work. And even more good news: it seems that is actively maintained.

So, let’s go to pamac (namely the add/remove software app), and let’s check the following in its preferences.

• in third party tab, Enable AUR Support (if not already), and enable check for updates

Now, we can close the preferences, and start searching. The package we are loking for is named unityhub in the AUR. so let’s install it.

While weŕe at it, we will need to install VS Code, its package is named visual-studio-code-bin (still from AUR source), mono from official repositories (extra), and dotnet-sdk from official repositories (community)

Now we should be good to go, we can start unity hub for the first setup (I did not have issues after login, as firefox did require to open an unityhub:/ URL)

Installing Unity seem to work. Please verify however that you have sufficient hardware requirements, and if you are using a NVidia GPU, that you are using the closed-source drivers (and not the nouveau driver).

The setup of VS Code is mostly the same as other linux distros, please double check that you enforce using the global mono for omnisharp in the preferences. (Go to preferences and search for mono global)

Final Words, Takeaways

In the end, it seemed even more straightforward, I am not sure that the dotnet-sdkpackage is required but I installed it anyway. However as said in the unity forums, Manjaro is not officially supported so I guess it’s a leap to take, and see if it´s worth giving it a try.