Skip to main content
jackwilliambell
Participant
March 29, 2013

OSX and Linux

I am very disappointed to find the SDK is MS Windoze only. :-( I currently avoid using that OS and do not have it installed on any of my personal systems.

When can we expect OSX and Linux versions of the SDK? On the one hand I want to dive into this. On the other hand I don't want to have to buy and install an OS I have very strong feelings against in order to do so.

    46 replies

    Show previous replies
    atavener
    Up and Coming
    April 11, 2013
    "jackwilliambell" wrote:
    I don't think a Pi has the horsepower, either CPU or GPU, to support the Oculus.


    I think it has enough for simple scenes, say N64 complexity, or a virtual window manager. I think there's plenty of fun to be had at that level with a hardware hackable walkabout device + HMD.
    bfoz
    New Participant
    April 16, 2013
    "msat" wrote:
    If so, I'd just like to mention a cross-platform (Win, OSX, Linux) open source HID interface library aptly named HIDAPI with very permissible licenses (http://www.signal11.us/oss/hidapi/).


    I imagine the Oculus team already has a solution for this, but I'll go ahead and throw my own library into the ring: https://github.com/bfoz/libhid

    I never got around to finishing support for Linux because I mostly use Macs these days, but it wouldn't be hard to do. Of course, I'd be more than happy to fix up anything that Oculus needs fixing. :) It'll give me something to do while I'm waiting for the Mac version of the SDK.
    hesham
    Up and Coming
    April 16, 2013
    "jackwilliambell" wrote:
    "JWB" wrote:
    My initial interest is pairing the Rift with a Raspberry Pi, a wireless module (none of which I have yet), and the X Window System's client-server ability for quite the mobile experience. Hopefully, porting an existing window manager will be trivial.


    I don't think a Pi has the horsepower, either CPU or GPU, to support the Oculus.

    What's interesting though is what might be done if you cache the distortion coordinates in a texture as discussed in another thread, it might have enough power then for simpler scenes.
    Ibex 3D VR Desktop for the Oculus Rift: http://hwahba.com/ibex - https://bitbucket.org/druidsbane/ibex
    jordonp
    Participant
    April 17, 2013
    You can get similar systems to the Raspberry Pi that have more power.
    I was thinking of buying one of these to play with(not using the rift)

    http://www.hardkernel.com/renewal_2011/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G135341359084

    It has about the same specs as a galaxy S3 and runs android or ubuntu.
    More expensive though($69), but still pretty good for what you get.
    It even comes with casing!

    Can't vouch for the quality though, but it's been mentioned on big tech news sites.
    JWB
    Participant
    April 17, 2013
    "jackwilliambell" wrote:
    "JWB" wrote:
    My initial interest is pairing the Rift with a Raspberry Pi, a wireless module (none of which I have yet), and the X Window System's client-server ability for quite the mobile experience. Hopefully, porting an existing window manager will be trivial.


    I don't think a Pi has the horsepower, either CPU or GPU, to support the Oculus.


    That's certainly a possibility. As others have mentioned, it will likely depend on the complexity of what's being attempted: therein lies the importance of the X Window System's client-server model. I concede my technical familiarity with xorg is substandard, but I think it will be possible to do most of the heavy lifting on a support system (a main PC), and then present the window to the Raspberry Pi for display. In the best case scenario, the Pi and support PC would (automatically) coordinate their hardware capabilities to determine what should be computed where.

    This isn't my only interest in the Rift by any means. I'm sure all of our imaginations are running wild with the possibilities: I'm hoping to tackle several ideas at once with this initial project. Integration with something like salome-platform on the support PC would be ideal. The Pi, obviously, isn't necessary for integrating the Rift into existing software, but I'm intrigued on how best to coordinate such a setup.

    On the software integration side: it would be simplest to pass the window to a window manager compatible with the Rift, and update the software's 3D viewport (e.g., Blender) to be cognizant that a stereoscopic output is present. The proper thing to do, however, would be to tailor an interface for a display like the Rift.

    A window manager makes for a quaint playground to toy with these possibilities.
    guilhermehartma
    Participant
    April 19, 2013
    Well,

    If you are interested in a portable computer to plug with the Rift, parallella might be an alternative .. It has potential to process larges amount of data and could potentially drive exceptional framerates for simple models.
    martinP
    Up and Coming
    April 19, 2013
    Is there at least some rough estimate? like, at the the beginning of May SDK for OSX and then one month for Linux SDK?
    Anonymous
    April 19, 2013
    "martinP" wrote:
    Is there at least some rough estimate? like, at the the beginning of May SDK for OSX and then one month for Linux SDK?

    viewtopic.php?f=26&t=130#p1157
    "mikeant" wrote:
    Thank you everyone for your suggestion to help with Mac! The fact is we are actually pretty far along with OSX port (the accidentally released Mac source files are not representative of our progress as work is being done in a different branch). Multiple OS support required redesign of HID interface to be portable, as well as OpenGL/platform framework for demos. These changes are extensive enough that external contributions would be tricky to integrate at this point, although we might ask for community support on future ports :)

    In terms of the timeline, we can't promise an exact date, but at this point we are hoping to release OSX support by the end of April.
    dagit
    New Participant
    April 20, 2013
    Is it possible to get a snapshot of the OSX support even if it isn't finish yet? I just want something that builds on OSX so that I can figure how to incorporate the SDK into programs I'm writing. Since I don't have a rift yet, it doesn't need to work perfectly. I need to get started on Monday. Am I out of luck?

    I don't need the library to work yet as I don't have my rift yet. So I suppose if push comes to shove, I can use #ifdefs to get rid of all the Windows specific code and write a makefile so that I can build my wrapper around the platform agnostic API. It just seems like an unfortunate way to work.
    cybereality
    Inspiring
    April 23, 2013
    OSX support is coming very soon. Sorry for the wait.
    AMD Ryzen 7 1800X | MSI X370 Titanium | G.Skill 16GB DDR4 3200 | EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 | Corsair Hydro H110i Gigabyte RX Vega 64 x2 | Samsung 960 Evo M.2 500GB | Seagate FireCuda SSHD 2TB | Phanteks ENTHOO EVOLV
    Show more replies
    Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement