I finally switched to Linux for my daily driver and gaming PC. It was easy.

So honestly, which percentage of your game collection runs on Linux? Because I've looked into doing this just a few months ago, and unless the industry had some kind of mass exodus, less than 10% of my games run on Linux, and that's a generous estimate.

Not defending Windows or anything, this is just my experience.

Honestly I have a ridiculous pile o' games like a lot of us do, and I've yet to find something (that's not VR) that I cannot play .

For reference I'm running OpenSUSE Tumbleweed with a 30 series Nvidia card. Wayland, two monitors, main is 144hz ultrawide 3440 x 1440, another is 1080p 60hz.

First off there's a few programs out there to get you "Glorious Eggroll" versions of Proton which add even more stuff Valve can't distribute in their versions.

This beautiful software right here looks about right: https://davidotek.github.io/protonup-qt/

Steam works fantastically. Heck, Proton works better than native Linux builds sometimes! Deck playability is an even bigger mark of quality.

Even EA's silly launcher works. I got Titanfall 2 and that Sims 2 Ultimate they gave away ages ago working like butter.

I also love actually owning my games, so I use Heroic Launcher for GoG titles.

Oh! I even have CD games or old .EXEs windows would refuse to even install anymore! Don't worry, Linux has got this. I use Bottles to have separate environments for those games to install to and run. Majority of the time it works great but this is where things can get iffy. But hey, Windows wouldn't run them at all!

Wanna know what made me switch? Vermintide 2 kept giving me BSODs in Windows 10 with some super vague error code that made me think "Oh crap, please don't tell me my GPU is dying."

Nope! Linux ran it with zero probs once I fixed some small quirk to make their dumb little launcher work.

Cherry on top? All my RGB stuff works with Open RGB or my recently retired Corsair keyboard works with "CKB Next".

The community has made incredible strides. My Win10 partition only exists because it has Windows Mixed Reality, which they're abandoning. But not to fear, the Monado project is making HUGE improvements.

Give it a shot. I think you'll be surprised.

How are you getting on with VR? I have a Reverb G2 and if I can play Elite and DCS on Linux I'm basically sold at this point.

I really want a new headset but nothing beats the G2 right now, without giving money to Meta which I refuse to do.

Heya! Sorry for taking a minute to get back to you.

1000000% with you on not giving a cent to meta or throwing out perfectly good hardware with plenty of life left!!!! For real!

So, last time I tried, VR is a little bumpy right now. I have a Samsung Odyssey+ set that's simply fantastic...if Microsoft weren't deliberately turning it into a paperweight.

Wonderful strides are being made by the FOSS community however!

It's bumpy because a lot of VR kits' only hope right now is a project called "Monado"

Monado - Developer Site

(monado.freedesktop.org)

(Right now it looks like your Reverb G2 is supported!)

I main OpenSUSE Tumbleweed these days, and I used this awesome bit of software called "Envision" that attempts to automate the "retrieve all the correct dependencies and build the thing" stuff.

For being so early, I was very impressed, especially since I'm no pro at compiling software and navigating Git branches and stuff. This is relatively turnkey. (In a tinkery Linux way, anyway lol)

Envision

Envision # Envision GitLab repository Envision is a graphical app that acts as an orchestrator to get a full Monado or WiVRn setup up and running with a few clicks. Envision attempts to construct a working runtime with both a native OpenXR and an OpenVR API, provided by OpenComposite, for client aplications to utilize. Please note the OpenVR implementation is incomplete and contains only what’s necessary to run most games for compatibility. If you plan to implement software, utilize the OpenXR API, specification here.

Linux VR Adventures Wiki (lvra.gitlab.io)

(The wiki here is pretty nice!)

I was able to get the headset to function this way, as in, fire up a game and see through it and look around, and you can enable hand tracking, which is really neat! But I struggled to actually select or interact with anything using it.

The real tough nut to crack is the controllers, but they have made some strides there too! There's a branch that enables controller support, but it's VERY janky right now, like, unusuable, but it's cool that it's going somewhere!

The other challenge is smoothness. Expect a little jitter here and there, it's not so buttery smooth like it was running WMR because they did a LOT of fancy proprietary compensation and prediction code sorta stuff to make that experience work. (And to the surprise of absolutely no one, they refuse to let us folks have it.)

For Elite or DCS, since you'd just be using mouse and keyboard or a standard controller or something anyway, the headset part MIGHT be enough for you! I'd definitely encourage you to give it a shot and have a little patience with it to see if it can be acceptable for you where it's at right now.

You can also get a lot of information and help in the "Linux VR Adventures" Discord. (Ugh, I know.) Link here if you're interested.

Unless you're savvy building a bunch of stuff yourself, I'd say check out Envision first, and use that to build Monado for your Reverb and see how that works out for you.

I hope this was helpful!

Thank you that's very helpful! I'm pretty handy with software so not troubled by that, but I am lazy outside of work so I'll likely follow your envision advice! But still sounds like a fair bit to do so I suspect I'll kick it down the road till WMR finally goes.

Thanks again!

Sure thing! So glad I could be helpful!

I don't blame you. It's the only thing I'm keeping a Win10 dual-boot for right now, and to their credit, it does work quite well in Windows. We've had a ton of fun with our set.

In the meantime, I'm keeping up with the project but not actively tinkering with it myself, because it's exciting but also not quite there yet. It's at least given me hope that it can be done though! I'm confident we'll see significant gains sooner rather than later. Hats off to them. (Once my income stabilizes I'll gotta pitch them some funds...)

Envision has made it VERY convenient to get set up, but the whole process still saps more time than "Fire it up and play." So maybe play with it at some point, but either way definitely keep your ear to the ground.

I'm hoping in the future we'll get to use it for things like Godot XR or Blender integration.