Lets make a SDK 0.4 Linux nagging thread!

Just wanting to post a conclusion to this thread. It's a shame that oculus stopped trying and announcing the "temporary" stop of Linux/OSX support at the same time as partnering with Microsoft looks sinister.
Too sinister for me.

I'm looking forward to Valve/HTC Vive

I'd go one further. Given how things have panned out with respect to Linux, I'd like to return my DK2 for a refund. I don't think that's unreasonable given that I bought it for an advertised feature which has now been dropped. I'll keep the DK1 for old times sake, and because it's been supported to the end of its life on all platforms. That's reasonable.

But now SDK versions which I can't use are being released for hardware I paid for, I'm not happy.

I've emailed support@oculus , and asked them on twitter, but got no response. Does anyone have any further ideas?

It's all disappointingly unprofessional, if I'm honest.

"creepytennis" wrote:
I'd go one further. Given how things have panned out with respect to Linux, I'd like to return my DK2 for a refund. I don't think that's unreasonable given that I bought it for an advertised feature which has now been dropped. I'll keep the DK1 for old times sake, and because it's been supported to the end of its life on all platforms. That's reasonable.

The DK2 is functional on Linux with SDK version 0.5. Basically all of the advancements in 0.6 have to do with Direct mode, which doesn't function on Linux. So what's the problem?

"jherico" wrote:

The DK2 is functional on Linux with SDK version 0.5. Basically all of the advancements in 0.6 have to do with Direct mode, which doesn't function on Linux. So what's the problem?

- There is no point developing for a deprecated API. The DK2 was explicitly sold as a means to develop for the consumer Rift, and this core function is no longer available to Linux and OSX users.

- The DK2 was explicitly sold as a multiplatform device. There was no disclaimer or warning that Linux support was "experimental", or that OSX support would remain permanently unfinished. The advertised Linux support has never progressed beyond "experimental" (Oculus' words). Therefore the DK2 was misleadingly advertised.

Jherico, let me put it this way. Would you have bought the DK2 if it had been advertised, as it is now, as a Windows Only device?

"jherico" wrote:
The DK2 is functional on Linux with SDK version 0.5. Basically all of the advancements in 0.6 have to do with Direct mode, which doesn't function on Linux. So what's the problem?

Take a look at https://share.oculus.com/category/dk2#e ... NldCI6MH0=

Easily 95% of this simply doesn't work. Why is that?

"haagch" wrote:

Take a look at https://share.oculus.com/category/dk2#e ... NldCI6MH0=

Easily 95% of this simply doesn't work. Why is that?

Thanks. Another good point.

"creepytennis" wrote:
There is no point developing for a deprecated API. The DK2 was explicitly sold as a means to develop for the consumer Rift, and this core function is no longer available to Linux and OSX users.

Well, there is if it's the only API available to you, then yes, there's a point. If you don't like the API support, write your own. All the information needed to interact directly with the hardware is publicly available. The biggest missing component is the software to do sensor fusion to combine the camera data with the IMU data. I'm sure once CV1 comes out people will reverse engineer that hardware too.

"creepytennis" wrote:
The DK2 was explicitly sold as a multiplatform device. There was no disclaimer or warning that Linux support was "experimental", or that OSX support would remain permanently unfinished. The advertised Linux support has never progressed beyond "experimental" (Oculus' words). Therefore the DK2 was misleadingly advertised.

Meh. The DK2 works on Mac, and it works on Linux.

"creepytennis" wrote:
Jherico, let me put it this way. Would you have bought the DK2 if it had been advertised, as it is now, as a Windows Only device?

Since I was already writing a book on Oculus development, I'd have to say yes. That's probably true even if that wasn't the case. Bear in mind that I wrote and released Linux support for the Oculus SDK before Oculus did. I assisted in the effort to reverse engineer the mechanism by which the tracking lights can be enabled and detected by the camera. I've pretty much stopped doing that sort of thing because I'm tired of being Oculus' unpaid code monkey. But I still have to maintain support for Oculus on a cross platform application so I'm coping with the level of support they offer. I find it more productive than complaining.

Jherico, I hugely respect your work making the Oculus SDK available on Linux and I've used that work myself. Thank you. But I think you may be suffering from a degree of Stockholm syndrome here! :)

You say you're tired of being Oculus' unpaid code monkey. Well, I don't blame you! And I'm tired of being a developer on a platform they clearly wish they'd never supported, and now do not support, despite advertising that they would.

As you point out, there is not a complete, working Open Source solution to developing for the DK2. The DK2 "works", after a fashion, on Linux and OSX, but not using a current API. Therefore there is no point continuing Oculus development for OSX and Linux - it is a a cul de sac, a dead end, and as time moves on nobody will be able to run what we produce. The device is useless to us. They have left Linux and OSX developers like you and me high and dry.

I'm not complaining for complaining's sake. I'm being productive in the only way which makes sense, sadly - Asking for a refund so I can stop dealing with this dishonest company and devote my development energies elsewhere.

"creepytennis" wrote:
The DK2 "works", after a fashion, on Linux and OSX, but not using a current API. Therefore there is no point continuing Oculus development for OSX and Linux - it is a a cul de sac, a dead end, and as time moves on nobody will be able to run what we produce.

That's presupposing that Oculus drops support for the 0.5 API. Yeah, maybe eventually they will, since it would cut off the ability for others *cough* OpenVR *cough* to wrap another layer around the Ouclus hardware. But in the meantime, the difference between the 0.6 and 0.5 APIs only amounts to a fairly small amount of code, certainly a tiny fraction compared with building or adapting an app for VR. If nothing else, the DK2 represents a platform on which to test out your VR work until something better comes along.

"creepytennis" wrote:
I'm not complaining for complaining's sake. I'm being productive in the only way which makes sense, sadly - Asking for a refund so I can stop dealing with this dishonest company and devote my development energies elsewhere.

I appreciate that, and I wish you luck, but I think that money's gone. Personally I wouldn't do it because I'd still want the hardware to hack on.

"jherico" wrote:
But I still have to maintain support for Oculus on a cross platform application so I'm coping with the level of support they offer. I find it more productive than complaining.

Not everyone is a skilled "low level" 3D developer. I believe that oculus share would be very empty if not for high level engines like unity or unreal. Likewise for me. It would have been nice to mess around with the dk2 and the officially supported unreal editor for linux. But we never could (except for that unofficial old branch in a fork that sorta enabled the preview, but not building for linux).