Oh they totally will try. Microsoft is dum enough to try it, just like they are dum enough to try to train massive LLMs, and damn, they not be showin’ successes til now :)

I remember, I think I also saw that video by that one Linux/windows tech guy

They cannot do that. The foss community is too strong to fail, many people use GNU/Linux specifically because it’s not owned by EvilCo™ and EvilHoldings™.

naw, have your tried Envision? Just a few months ago I thought the same as you, but ever since I tried Envision, I have not opened SteamVR at all.

Envision (a foss VR client) works GREAT for VR on linux. In fact, I also have an index, so I can tell you that yes, it works very well.

I stumbled across this project via the lvra website, which is an amazing forum site about using your VR devices on GNU/Linux. I highly, highly recommend going over there and having a look around. It features guides to many common questions and helped me a ton.

Envision is really just an interface for monado, which does all the complex VR stuff like tracking and screen distortion.

Envision let’s you import the VR calibration from SteamVR right into Monados format. It uses a super small part of SteamVR in the background to perform the lighthouse tracking. But it’s very lightweight, especially when compared to SteamVR and Oculus’s VR interface.
Envision takes no time at all to boot up, it also lets you try out the “survive” lighthouse tracker, which is completely FOSS and doesn’t rely on SteamVR at all besides the calibration data (the tracking quality is noticably worse though and the IPD seems to be off, but give it a try!)

There are two hurtles to get through tho:

1. Monado doesn’t come with a “room boundary” system. You have to either move very little, or get yourself another solution for displaying your rooms bounds. Maybe try this one, haven’t tested it yyet though.
2. Monado does not come with its own “steam vr dashboard”. You have to bring your own. I recommend Wlx-Overlay-S as it works great for PC navigation and allows for very fast playspace-moving and resetting. It also allows for stuff like locking certain windows into your environment, so please give it a try, even if you stick with SteamVR. Envision allows for automatic launching of apps on startup, so I launch wlxoverlay.

If you have any questions about it, there is a Discord server for linux-specific-vr stuff over on the lvra website.

TLDR: If you didn’t read any of this, just go to this page and have a look at Envision. There are all sorts of cool linux-specific VR things on there. Their discord helped me lots

Edit: You can also ask me if I want

Could you maybe name some distros and DEs which have this feature pre-built?

I have used mint, Debian and Fedora and none of them seem to have this kind of feature.

Hmm this looks very interesting. I like the immediate without NFTs and Bitcoin thingy.

It doesn’t seem to support speech communication and VR though, which is kinda the whole point for me. Very promising though.

ok fair u got me there. Lutris really is a solution, but it still feels like some game-specific launcher you gotta run to run normal programs.

i was mostly complaining about the double click thing.

woah WOAH HEY THERE this seems SUPER useful!!!

I will totally check this out!

I’m using an index. You can use Envision, as it supports wireless headsets and gives you a nice interface to set things up.

That is also what I use, as Envision also has support for cabled headsets.

In general, the lvra website is a great source for cool foss VR stuff on linux.

I actually never heard of this saying, but I just looked up. Woah, that’s really a phrase they use internally, hm? Crazy.

And it does accurately describe what they try to do here. It can’t really work like that, since many people use GNU/Linux specifically because it’s not owned by EvilCo™. But they could probably take over some part of the server-hosting business like this. And that is a scary thought.

Imagine, they could make it super easy to deploy things by incoperating premade docker containers into their UI thingy. That’s - like - real bad.

Actually, Beat Saber was just an example, I mostly use VR for gamedev and Jet Island (cool VR game on Steam, maybe check it out).

Got a question though, it would be SUPER amazing to have some kind of open alternative to VR Chat. Like the Fediverse, but in realtime.

I know that this is probably harder to turn into a real thing, but IMAGINE!!!

VR Chat already has this feeling how it’s all about people colaborating, and adding the power of self-hosting to the mix, alongside removing ads would be super duper amazing…

(I’ll probably make a post about this on some VR community soon, this seems too interesting to keep local to this comment)

I don’t know what you mean in your first argument. What exactly do you mean by “a lot of the other additions and improvements”? And what about them becomes unbearable?

I will have a look at the Bottles thing you brought up. Thank you for sharing that!

Small addition:
Now that VR works essentially perfectly on GNU/Linux, even on Wayland with Gnome and an nvidia GPU, I have now stopped dualbooting for occasional VR Chat and Beat Saber (which are VR games).

In my opition, when looking away from online games with anticheat, Microsofts Office and adobes whatever software, there is no reason to use Winblows anymore.

The amount of configuration GNU/Linux gives me is truly empowering, running any scripts I want using shortcuts being a big one for me.

Super+E -> Nautilus (obvious)
Super+W -> Firefox
Super+Y -> Youtube
Super+C -> Local LLM chat
Super+G -> Launch Godot
Generally vim navigation

Is there a reason windows users don’t get this error?

yup, renamed it to […].rules.backup. Thanks for responding though!

why u delete your comment?

Just tried it, and sadly that didn’t change anything after a reboot.

Fair, but they supported it a bit before that too I think. Like, they allowed it to show up in the login.

Unfortunately that did not fix it for me. I have now renamed the file to […].backup but it still only displays X11 options.