Oculus Rift CV1 Should Be Less Quirky On Linux 4.12

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Oculus Rift CV1 Should Be Less Quirky On Linux 4.12

The Oculus Rift CV1 head mounted display should play nicer with the Linux 4.12 kernel...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Oculus-Rift-CV1

[tiwake]

Didn't the original kickstarter for the Oculus Rift include linux support from the start? Having not backed it, nor even seen the kickstarter page for the device, I can not verify myself. However having heard of such from a lot of people, and then all of a sudden them deciding to not support linux... douche move, facebook.

I'll likely buy an HTC vive at some point in the future [years].

[kmare]

Well, they certainly made clear promises about Linux support, released something like a beta support for the first DK1 release and then nothing for the next releases (DK2, CK1 if I remember correctly). Their excuse was that they didn't promise anything about later versions (technically, it might be true, but come on....) and that they wanted to focus on Windows first. Here's the kickstarter link:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-step-into-the-game

I would go for the HTC Vive as they're actually really working on it and Valve is really investing in the whole Linux support (drivers, APIs and games).

[KRiloshart]

Valve and htc vive here i come.

[johanb]

Well, they certainly made clear promises about Linux support, released something like a beta support for the first DK1 release and then nothing for the next releases (DK2, CK1 if I remember correctly). Their excuse was that they didn't promise anything about later versions (technically, it might be true, but come on....) and that they wanted to focus on Windows first. Here's the kickstarter link:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-step-into-the-game

I would go for the HTC Vive as they're actually really working on it and Valve is really investing in the whole Linux support (drivers, APIs and games).

I had access to a DK2 at work a while back and it worked fine on Linux at first. A year or so later they dropped support though and as the Oculus SDK version increased fewer games kept supporting Linux as games updated their Unreal/Unity versions.

So yeah, your point still stands that you should go with the Vive, just wanted to correct yout statement that the DK2 didn't have any support at all.

[haagch]

The dk2 didn't run fine at first. It took them several months with zero communication until they managed to release their closed source tracking service. During that time it was just a paperweight - all while their website said they support linux. That's why people started reverse engineering the hardware in the first place. See https://forums.oculus.com/developer/...nagging-thread and https://forums.oculus.com/community/...outh-is-thread and http://doc-ok.org/?p=1095

Then it took them many months more until they released a unity plugin that worked on linux - and on the same day they dropped linux support altogether.

Their SDK always had many bugs on linux. https://github.com/jherico/OculusSDK/pull/51 or http://douevenknow.us/post/137458663...dnt-have-broke never got fixed.

There's some links here.

[L_A_G]

Didn't the original kickstarter for the Oculus Rift include linux support from the start? Having not backed it, nor even seen the kickstarter page for the device, I can not verify myself. However having heard of such from a lot of people, and then all of a sudden them deciding to not support linux... douche move, facebook.

The Rift also had OSX support that they dropped before the consumer version came out so it's not like simply not bothering with Linux support is the only thing they've initially supported, but then decided that it wasn't worth the effort and dropped. I think they did say around the time of the unveiling of the consumer version that Linux support is planned at some point, but that it's rather heavily on the back burner as they focus on improving the Windows side of things and getting the motion controllers ready and released. With limited resources this does make sense, but it doesn't make them look any less scummy for doing so.

Oh well... Seeing how most PC VR games support the HTC Vive anyway it's not like we'll missing all that much once VR games start supporting Linux in slightly larger numbers.

[schmidtbag]

For Linux users, I'd say currently it's a bit of a toss-up between the Vive and OSVR. The OSVR, in a hardware perspective, works perfectly fine (if not better) in Linux and has for a while. But, there is currently no working option for hand controllers (meanwhile you can use a LEAP Motion in Windows) and fewer things work with it compared to the Vive. Vive's Linux support meanwhile seems to be a low priority, but it seems there's a lot more you can do with it. So really neither option is great, but I bet the Vive has a more promising future.