Mapping on Linux
 

Not sure if this is the right section (or even forum) for this question, but still it seems to apply best here besides „Off-Topic”.

Like 15 years ago, I was into Half-Life mapping, and now I'm thinking about getting back to it. But in the meantime, my computing environment has changed significantly – in the old days I was on Windows XP, while today I'm 100% on Ubuntu.

The problem is that as far as I know, the official Half-Life level editor, Valve Hammer Editor, is discontinued, so it didn't get ported to Linux along with the GoldSrc engine. Now basically I see two options: run VHE in Wine/Proton (not sure about the user experience of that), or find a VHE alternative that is natively available on Linux.

The only alternative I know about is GtkRadiant – since it's Linux-compatible, it would sound great, but I tried it in the past and remember that my impression was fairly negative. It's not nearly as straightforward and convenient as VHE. If I remember correctly, it doesn't even support FGD game data files, so good luck learning entity names and properties by heart. But I also didn't put in any real effort to learn it, I just checked it out because I heard people using it instead of VHE and it created misunderstandings.

Does anyone have any experience in Half-Life mapping on Linux? Do you use VHE with Wine, should I give GtkRadiant another chance, or do you know any better alternative?

Re: Mapping on Linux
 

It looks like JackHammer may be cross-platform compatible (based on searches online, it looks like it may have been renamed to "J.A.C.K". I've never used it personally (I'm not really a map developer and it's been forever since I've used Hammer) so I can't tell you where to get the official version or vouch for its security.

Re: Mapping on Linux
 

There's JACK on Steam but same thing is available for free. Hammer still runs fine on WINE. Touch one thing wrong though it erases all the work done on an entity so JACK is preferred. It can make bigger maps, so on. Hammer still has details others do not have. TrenchBroom is one to test out. I watched how they were making stuff and it caught my attention.

Re: Mapping on Linux
 

Trenchbroom is good for Quake maps but not good enough for Half-Life yet. You are missing things like models preview support, texture fit, automatic UV texture aligment when you are in vertex mode. I think the best choice for now is J.A.C.K. which you can download from here. This editor is available in Steam too but it's not free and the features it has it's not worth it, and it's not even getting updates..

Re: Mapping on Linux
 

https://twhl.info/wiki/page/Tools_and_Resources

• Valve Hammer Editor 3.5 (1.84mb) - The final version of the original, official Goldsrc editor, including model support.
• J.A.C.K. - General-purpose BSP tool aimed at all Quake-based engines. The free version runs on Windows and Linux. Currently the most stable of the modern Hammer clones. There's a paid Steam version that's slightly more up-to-date, and has Mac support. JACK is almost identical to Hammer, making it easy to use as a drop-in replacement, and tutorials for Hammer will make sense when using JACK.
• TrenchBroom - A Quake editor that has support for Half-Life as well. Runs Windows, Linux, and Mac. Doesn't currently render sprites and models in the editor, but otherwise fully works for Half-Life mapping. A very stable application that is being updated often, but is very different to Hammer, which will make most tutorials difficult to follow. TrenchBroom has an excellent manual to assist with that, however.
• Quark - The Quake Army Knife, another tool aimed at being a universal editor. Don't forget to install the required addons to enable mapping for your chosen HL mod.
• GtkRadiant 1.4 or 1.5 - Half-Life has never been a big focus of the GtkRadiant project, and support for it has been removed in version 1.6.
• Sledge Editor - A free, open-source replacement for the Hammer Editor that's no longer being actively developed. Unfinished and rather unstable - use with caution.