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doghous3
Up and Coming
March 29, 2018

Oculus + Linux

Hi,
I heard rumours the other day (on reddit - someone posted a link to an alpha build of my current project) that Oculus does not support Linux.

Thing is, I created builds for not only windows, but mac and linux.

Question is: what is the official status of Oculus' support for Linux?

And what is the issue that would prevent Oculus not working on Linux?

As, I could offer other SDKs in the build - which I would have to do to support Vive, etc.

At least one person reported Linux version working, which I thought intersting. So, I've come here to hear from the horses mouth (as they say). I like facts.

Thanks in advance!

      6 replies

      Create4Life
      Participant
      April 2, 2018
      1. Current status of official support:
        There is no official support at all and it is unknown if there ever will be. All I can tell you is that oculus does not share their roadmap on this matter and that it is not possible to run the oculus CV1 on linux at this point in time. They have not released the drivers necessary for it.
        Furthermore it is absolutely unclear if they will ever support linux
        again or if there is even a single developper working on it right now.


      2. What is the issue preventing them from supporting linux:
        Doing QA and developping on many platforms is expensive and slows down development. They feel spending 100% of dev time on windows is a better investment.

        They used to support linux in the kickstarter days but soon after
        the facebook buyout oculus completely dropped the linux sdk releases and
        never mentioned it again.

        I don't think there is any reason in particular that makes it impossible for the oculus to run on linux. Graphics drivers are of decent quality and the display pipeline is pretty low latency as is.

      3. Other SDKs to include:
        I don't have much experience with building games, but If you support OpenVR/SteamVR your game can be played through oculus/vive/WMR/Pimax...
        Basicly every PC headset yet released, even those that support linux.
        Other possibilities are osvr but the project appears to be stagnating. Appearantly there is not a lot of interest about truly open platforms.

      4. Third party oculus/linux solution:
        There are efforts to reverse engineer the drivers by the people over @
        openhmd who are making steady progress on achieving positional tracking.
        For the moment they got rotational tracking aswell as image output and
        lens distortion working.

        http://www.openhmd.net/








      doghous3Author
      Up and Coming
      April 3, 2018
      Thanks for the reply @Create4Life

      I know the front page at Oculus only provides win OS as part of the system requirements, but we all know there are ways around things.

      For now, I'll keep Linux supported, until someone reports that is doesn't work - and I've heard nothing yet...

      Interestingly, I only have the Oculus SDK installed, but I'm keeping the control method simple - enough so that porting between SDKs will be a simple process.  I'll have to see how things develop.

      *tips hat*
      Prisoner 518 Steam Pricsoner 518 Oculus [soon]
      foley2k2
      New Participant
      April 19, 2018
      I've been waiting on Linux driver support for Touch forever. There's no technical reason to not at least have support for developers. I don't care if Home doesn't work, but I do care if I can't use Unity3d or Unreal Engine 4. At least the Vive has _some_ support.

      Windows 10 is more trouble than it's worth with those settings that change themselves and unsolicited updates. Linux updates when I want with my approval and without reboots - big difference. If most games don't run on it, that's a bonus. Better focus.
      MadScientist42
      Participant
      May 13, 2018
      The OpenHMD guys are on the verge of getting sensorfusion on the whole and someone has made an OpenVR plugin that works with OpenHMD so things are progressing.  There's some delay as they're waiting to see when the needed direct rendering support for the display type there gets supported by at least NVidia and AMD.  It isn't on OpenGL which is a slight issue in their book as they've not framed in the needed bits and bobs for Vulkan as the support on Linux for that from the Big Two is missing some needed key features there that differ from the OpenGL ones.

      From what I can tell, the pieces are almost there...we're just waiting on a few things and it should be "better".

      What's infuriating is that Oculus promised us support and then took it away for OSX and Linux.  At the rate things are going, Valve will have something OpenVR-ish or OpenXR-ish before OpenHMD gets Oculus going and renders this all moot and while they may be "cheaper"- they're going to find themselves in a pickle as someone will be where they SHOULD'VE been all this time and they're staring right back at them.

      Claiming testing and all is a LAME excuse for this.  SERIOUSLY.  Their parent uses Linux all over the d*mn place.  It's not hard...just provide the means to do it either as technical data (nobody can use their tech legally- patents and all anyhow...) or as driver code or binaries and say You Are On Your Own like Nvidia and AMD do with their closed source drivers.  There's support...it's just not assured to be anything resembling timely unless you cough up cash.

      Create4Life
      Participant
      May 14, 2018
      Thanks for the heads up. Awesome that there some new advancements on the openHMD front and I am really looking forward to the results of the upcoming hackathon. (May 19)

      With just basic drivers and unity integration I will be all set. I really hope that the openHMD project can pick up where oculus should have went from the get go.

      CoolGamesNet
      Up and Coming
      June 18, 2018
      Android = Linux so Oculus Go should be Linux based.
      Somebody with a Go in developer mode post the response to this command.

      adb shell uname -a 

      adb shell getprop ro.build.version.release


      I am using Razer OSVR SDK V1.4 with X96 Mini Android TV box instead of Razer Forge TV (HDMI won't sync) 
      and waiting for answer to if WebVR apps for WebMIDI to Roland Go Keys can be made to run on it.

      Anyone remember playing games with Roland MT-32 MIDI sound ?
      I never could afford that extreme sound !
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MT-32-compatible_computer_games

      $ adb shell uname -a
      Linux localhost 3.14.29 #1 SMP PREEMPT Mon Oct 9 10:59:47 CST 2017 armv8l
      $ adb shell getprop ro.build.version.release 
      7.1.2


      I use exclusively Ubuntu Studio 18.04 for 360 video with Nikon Keymission 360.
      All pieces work even though Razer and Nikon are not acknowleging Linux.


      System 76 Lemur | 14.1 ′′ Matte 1080p IPS LED | laptop w/ factory mods Intel Core i7-6500U CPU @ 2.50GHz | 8 GB DDR3 at 1600 MHz 250 GB M.2 SSD | WiFi 867 Mbps Favoring Open Source -> Ubuntu Studio 18.10 for Nikon Keymission 360 & Web VR to Oculus Go
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