Manually Install Godot 4 on Fedora 37

This post is about installing/compiling the Godot Game Engine 4.x versions on Fedora. 

I maintain this post despite Godot having updated their instructions to apply to 4.x versions. You might prefer those instructions here.

Steps:

1. Install dependencies
   
•  $ sudo dnf install scons pkgconfig libX11-devel libXcursor-devel libXrandr-devel libXinerama-devel libXi-devel mesa-libGL-devel mesa-libGLU-devel alsa-lib-devel pulseaudio-libs-devel libudev-devel yasm gcc-c++ libstdc++-static libatomic-static 
  
2. Download source for the desired stable or development release:
1. Link: https://downloads.tuxfamily.org/godotengine/
2. Select the directory link to the desired release version
• Note: if you only find "dev" directories in a release directory, then it's not yet a stable release. It's still a development release.
  
3. Download the file with the source code: "godot-4.[version].tar.xz"
   
• Note: not the ".zip" file
3. Verify the tar file's checksum
• use either corresponsing sum number via the adjacent sha512 or sha256 files
• you can use the Dolphin file manager, or Checksumo(flatpak), or Gtkhash(flatpak)
  
4. Unpack the tar.xz file to a permanent location
• e.g. $ tar -xf file_name.tar.xz --directory ~/.var/godot
  
5. Change to that source directory
• e.g. $ cd /home/user/.var/godot/<release>/
6. Build the Godot Application
•  $ scons -j8 platform=linuxbsd 
  
• Where the '8' in 'j8' is the number of cpu cores to use for building
  
• Note: Building can take ten or so minutes
7. Creating a .desktop file for GUI Menus
   
• Create a file in /usr/local/share/applications like godot.desktop

 Example of contents of /usr/local/share/applications/godot.desktop:

[Desktop Entry] Name=Godot 4 Comment=Game Engine Exec=/home/<username>/.var/<custom path>/<release>/bin/godot.linuxbsd.editor.x86_64 Icon=/home/<username>/.var/<custom path>/<release>/icon.svg Categories=Development Keywords=Development,Games,Design Terminal=false Type=Application

BTW What is Godot?

Godot is a user friendly open source game engine. Version 3 came out in 2018. Version 4 has come out in 2023. New minor 4.x releases will continue to come out, with feature and stability improvements.

Manual installation can serve the purpose of testing/trying new development releases, or because you don't like other packaging methods.

Godot is exciting to me, because it is very cool in terms of open source successes. However it is also very cool because it is simply a good game engine. Version 4 has major improvements in store.

Related Links

• Godot News: https://godotengine.org/blog/
• Godot Code Git Repository: https://github.com/godotengine/godot
• Games Made with Godot: https://godotengine.org/showcase/