This week Valve released the beta for their SteamVR on Linux . It’s not quite ready for general consumption yet, but with a little bit of effort I was able to get it working on my Arch Linux install. At launch there appear to only be two functional applications, Destinations and DOTA2 (spectator) . I’ve tested both, and it’s working well, although it’s definitely a first pass. Performance was passable, but still needs a lot of work.
I’m really excited about this finally coming to market. I’ve been disappointed in Valves overall support of Linux, they are still treating it as a second class citizen, and developers/publishers have more or less followed suit. Part of the delay has been waiting for Vulkan to get it’s hooks into the industry to better support cross platform tech; the closer we get to Vulkan adoption, the more likely we are to see Linux support from a broader range of companies. I remain hopeful, yet wary.