Installing UE5 Early Access on Unbuntu Linux fails

anonymous_user_41b616f8 · May 27, 2021, 4:39am

So I gave the UE5 early access install a shot.
First try was installing the Epic Games Launcher. This is apparently Windows only, and tried to run under Wine 6.0. Result:

This is probably due to some missing DLLs, and with enough searching for DLLs for Wine, can probably be bashed into running. “Error code SU-PQR1603” is a bit vague. Says contact support, and so, you’ve been contacted.

OK, plan B, download the sources.

> sh Setup.sh
Fixing inconsistent case in filenames.
Setting up Mono
Checking dependencies...
Updating dependencies: 100% (70998/70998), 12659.1/12659.1 MiB | 9.72 MiB/s, do
Result: 0
Register the engine installation...
Setup.sh: 44: pushd: not found

Ah, needed to say “bash Setup.sh”, or “./Setup,sh”, not “sh Setup.sh” in the instructions. Old “sh” doesn’t have “pushd”. With that fix, we get to

No third party libs needed to be built locally

**********  SUCCESS ****************
Setup successful.

After that, “make” ran fine.

Found the executable, “UnrealEditor”, and launched that.

Warnings:

Many of:

[2021.05.26-19.49.56:404][ 0]LogDirectoryWatcher: Warning: inotify_add_watch cannot watch folder /home/john/projects/ue5/UnrealEngine-5.0.0-early-access-1/Engine/Content/Editor/Slate/Animation (errno = 28, Out of inotify watches, increase user.max_inotify_watches)

One of

[2021.05.26-19.55.30:350][ 0]LogModuleManager: Warning: ModuleManager: Unable to load module 'TimeManagementEditor' - 0 instances of that module name found.

Thousands of:

[2021.05.26-19.56.09:780][433]LogSlate: Warning: Slate: Had to block on waiting for a draw buffer

Using about 12GB of 32 GB at that point, not swapping.

That worked, and I was able to create the sample “third person” project.

Project creation produced the message:

Failed to import '/home/john/projects/ue5/UnrealEngine-5.0.0-early-access-1/FeaturePacks/StarterContent.upack'. Failed to create asset '/Game/StarterContent'.
Please see Output Log for details.

But the sample project did get created and will Play.

So, looks like the Linux target for UE5 is basically working, but needs some cleanup and polishing.

(Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Ryzen 5, NVidia 3070, 32 GB RAM…)

Sector7 · May 31, 2021, 9:23pm

I was able to build it on my ubuntu 20.10 latest without problems, building procedure is exactly the same like with ue 4:

In short, you’ll need to:

download and extract early-access version from github (see link)
I did change the owner of the extracted folder+subfolders to the user I’m logged in with so I have full read and write access.
enter the folder you extracted the engine to
run “./setup.sh” inside the folder
run “./GenerateProjectFiles.sh”
run “make” (this can take about an hour)

anonymous_user_f7e35902 · September 24, 2021, 3:33am

Hi, I came across your post. I tried to install UE5 as well (and UE4 before that) on Ubuntu 20.04, following exactly the same link you mentioned. There’s no error or anything, building & compiling were succeed, but it took me almost an half hour everytime to open UE. My machine is Core i7 with 20 ram, so I doubt there’s should be an issue with it, even Unity runs smoothly in my machine. I read that many people have the same issue and I read there’s a workaround to open a project instead of opening UE directly, it works but simply not practical for me.

Do you have the same issue , any advice ? And how do you open UE, from terminal, like the tutorial, or launcher ?

Antoshkaster · September 24, 2021, 6:33pm

Hi, I’m on Fedora 34 and while UE5 starts much much slower comparing to Windows it’s definitely not a half of an hour it’s something like 4:00-4:30

I’m launching editor from a terminal:
UnrealEditor ProjectName.uproject

anonymous_user_f7e35902 · September 25, 2021, 6:06am

I recently just deleted everything (UE4) and build again from scratch for UE5. So, UE5 opens around 14 minutes (had my stopwatch recording), and every time I tried to create a new project it would crash, I tried this a few times now. I mentioned this in Unreal Engine discord channel and apparently it’s not just me encountered this problem.

It might be because I’m using the latest commit (less stable?) But is it the distribution as well ? I’m on Ubuntu (Debian-based), it might be not the same case for Fedora then ?

Antoshkaster · September 25, 2021, 7:37am

FIRST launch after fresh build may take a longer time than next ones because UE5 will spent a lot of time compiling shaders. Next launches are faster.
I’m constantly testing UE5-main branch latest commits and while UE5-main have bugs crashes are pretty rare.

I just tested with build made yesterday and after click on create project to opened and working editor window - 4:00.

It is sounds stupid but on mine Fedora system Windows version of UE launched using Wine starts in a less than a half of a minute. As I guess it’s because Linux UE binary is dynamically linked.

I got mentioned 4 minutes startup on a very old system config:

Ryzen 2700X
32 Gigs
Radeon RX 5700
Fedora 34

ad it’s started from slow 5400 RPM HDD (SDD makes startup time just a little bit smaller; as I mentioned from same HDD Windows version starts in a blink of an eye)

anonymous_user_f7e35902 · September 25, 2021, 7:43am

I understand that FIRST launch would take more times, therefore I mentioned I have tried a few times. As of now I really have tried many times to open it, there seems to be no different on my machine. Yes, I build yesterday’s commit as well, and apparently on Linux it crashed not just for me. (Confirmed in UE Discord channel - Unslackers).

As of me, this is my machine :
Intel i7 7700 HQ
24GB ram
Nvida GTX 950
SSD Samsung 1TB

Antoshkaster · September 25, 2021, 10:13am

Hm, you have mobile chip. Did you checked whether it overheats on UE startup or not?
Also check in startup log that GTX 950 used not Intel GPU

anonymous_user_f7e35902 · September 25, 2021, 10:39am

Mobile chip, do you mean processor for mobile devices ? No, I don’t. I’m working on Asus laptop. Actually, I saved a log when my program crashed, I did see that UE recognizes my Nvidia. I can upload imy log if necessary but it’s not my thread, should I make a new thread ?

Antoshkaster · September 25, 2021, 11:08am

I mean not a desktop processor. And Intel’s specs for your processor says it’s a mobile one - i7 7700hq
Yes, having a log is nice idea.

anonymous_user_f7e35902 · September 25, 2021, 11:32am

I can’t open your link, but if what you mean was mobile cpu, then yes it is. Here’s my log. Quite long and I don’t know where to start looking. Please let me know if you find any useful info, thanks.

Antoshkaster · September 25, 2021, 1:03pm

Without knowledge of what exactly you are tried to do - to open existing C++ or Blueprint project, to create a new one etc - I can only say that UE really tries to use GFX 950

anonymous_user_f7e35902 · September 25, 2021, 1:11pm

Actually, I mentioned in my prev post that you replied that it crashed every time I tried to create a new project. Also it’s creating a new project using C++. Anyway, thank you.

Sector7 · September 25, 2021, 1:13pm

sorry you seem to have trouble. sadly cannot assist. My unreal engine versions on ubuntu opened up as fast as on windows

I agree, the very first time it can actually take half an hour to an hour for shader compilation etc, that seems to be a fix part in loading up the engine now. But if you did that once, the next startup should be within minutes if not seconds. I have the feeling on windows at least, the engine is much faster in starting up, even saving materials and some other stuff than previous UE versions.

yet i have to say I switched back to windows, because i do wanna play with UE5. This for as long as nanite is not supported on linux (vulkan isn’t working yet for nanite) it will be but it’s not yet.
Nanite can only be used on Windows for now. Probably will have to wait until early 2022 when UE5 will be released. So I suggest installing a windows until UE5 proper version is released so you can actually test nanite. I hate to give that advice, but it’s really the best thing to do if you wanna play with UE5 without many additional headaches and nanite not working.

At the moment I just set up my scene as I want it in UE5 but gameplay wise I still use UE4 to test my character controllers, ai, other functionality. I mean even creating a landscape from heightmap fails in UE5 (if you can even call that failing :'D). It’s only good for testing nanite and lumen (and hell I’m impressed!), but you can really not yet do much more than filling a landscape (that you setup in an earlier UE version and converted it to UE5 project) with assets and see how it looks (beautifully ).
I mean of course the UE4 functionality is there with blueprints and all the systems, but some things aren’t working, other things might change. So maybe just continue using UE4. Just give a ■■■■ about LODs and converting assets into low poly, because nanite really can handle it

anonymous_user_f7e35902 · September 25, 2021, 1:19pm

Hi, thanks a lot ! In my case UE4 opened really slow even after the first launch, that’s why I am confused. From my terminal log, it seemed like it needed to compile shaders everytime.

You’re right, since UE5 won’t even open on my machine properly maybe I should just go to back to UE4, it’s not ideal and extremely slow, but at the same time I only have one machine and I can’t go back to Windows due to many other projects that need Linux.

Sector7 · September 25, 2021, 1:25pm

I wish you good luck!! Hope UE5 next year will run faster for you, it can really drag one down if you have to wait for software all the time while creating games etc. I’m surely gonna be back on linux as soon as nanite works on linux (can’t stand windows anymore^^), then I might be of further assistance again as I could test stuff locally Have a good time!