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Lets make a SDK 0.4 Linux nagging thread!
ElectricMucus
Posts: 378
Since there is no official response as to the status of Linux & OSX I am creating a thread.
I think that cross platform developers shouldn't be treated as second-class citizen. Perhaps this is of no concern and the SDK is on it's way as we are posting, but I'd like to make sure we aren't over looked!
The new way of treating the rift as a specialized device using the windows runtime & driver might complicate things, or not. But before there is further speculation it would be really, really nice if some oculus rep gives us a short heads up.
update: thanks for the OSX release, how long until we've got Linux?
I think that cross platform developers shouldn't be treated as second-class citizen. Perhaps this is of no concern and the SDK is on it's way as we are posting, but I'd like to make sure we aren't over looked!
The new way of treating the rift as a specialized device using the windows runtime & driver might complicate things, or not. But before there is further speculation it would be really, really nice if some oculus rep gives us a short heads up.
update: thanks for the OSX release, how long until we've got Linux?
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Comments
Personally I'd just be happy if Oculus would QA the GL distortion rendering code before releasing an SDK, instead of letting the community do it for them.
Sorry, I'm a bit irritable right now.
Co-author of Oculus Rift in Action
Each new "major" release of the SDK, there is a Windows only beta, then the Os X and Linux version come shortly after.
Since I haven't my DK2 yet (I'm probably on the 2nd batch *finger crossed*) I'm not really impatient to get the Linux 0.4 SDK yet... :roll:
I don't know well Os X, but on Linux, X (graphical server) is a very old system that wasn't designed for multiscreen applications. Sometimes it's capricious.
I'm glad to wait the developers get something that works properly before shipping it. I'm realy looking forward the "new way" of displaying on the rift under Linux. It's one of the software features I was waiting the most
I'm writing a C++ open-sourcre game engine for the Rift http://annwvyn.org/ - https://github.com/Ybalrid/Annwvyn
For now it's only used for my student projects at my engineering school http://en.esiea.fr/
You're quite the optimist. I'm personally doubting if they'll go as far as supporting the 'non-desktop' display functionality in Linux. Up until 0.3.x they were still relying on Xinerama for screen manipulation, and investing in Linux development isn't likely to get them that much return on their investment. I think it's more likely that we'll see a linux runtime that supports the sensor functionality, but that the rendering to the Rift without having it as an active display won't be in the Linux release feature set.
Co-author of Oculus Rift in Action
I think you're right. Although, I would actually welcome a simpler Linux SDK!
All I really want from the SDK is easy access to the sensor data. Functions which help with stereo rendering, distortion, time-warp etc. are also very nice to have. But getting involved with actually piping the display to the Rift's display etc.? That's going to be very difficult to make truly portable, and maybe beyond what I personally think the SDK should try and do.
I'm curious as the actual latency of the DK2 on Windows compared to Linux. Is the direct access mode only necessary because of Window's DWM possibly causing an extra frame of latency that there is no clear way to turn off? Like I know in Windows 8 you can't disable the compositor anymore and need hardware fullscreen, or direct X flag, or vendor specific OpenGL flags.
I'm hoping in the Linux that this is not the case and that a normal window is as fast as it can be.
But then again, I wonder what will have to happen when Wayland or Mir starts appearing in a few years.
For the interest, I think if the Rift can works under linux, it means that you can do VR on "Steambox" running Steam OS. It's still an interesting thing for Oculus.
I think the whole X server stuff is somewhat obsolete. But it works and we have nothing better for now. I don't folow the developement of Wayland, but if I remember, the idea was to have a more modern and simple graphical server.
Anyway, the only thing we can do now is to wait to get a 0.4.x version running under Linux...
I hope it will be out before I receive my DK2. I don't mind booting to windows sometimes, but I realy prefer my ArchLinux/KDE environement ^^"
I'm writing a C++ open-sourcre game engine for the Rift http://annwvyn.org/ - https://github.com/Ybalrid/Annwvyn
For now it's only used for my student projects at my engineering school http://en.esiea.fr/
We all know that Oculus is resource limited (in meat-space), and Windows will be their main platform so that's were the effort is being put. That said, I'd _really_ welcome the Linux SDK and was disappointed it was not available at the same time as Windows.
Solution? Put what you (Oculus) have up on Git-Hub, it'll be fixed over the weekend.... the terms of the license mean that it's going to be put up there anyhow, might as well make it your own repo.
Simon.
Brad has already fixed this in his github/copy of the 0.3.2 SDK, Xinerama is just required for one of the demos I believe.
Simon
I found something interesting on page 29 in the current developer guide:
To facilitate cross platform projects it would be very nice to have a simple/consistent way to setup the display across different systems. Especially when you are already in a cross platform environment like the JVM. I had a lot of trouble with display setup using lwjgl since it just lacks the necessary platform-specific functionality like controlling on which display you want to run fullscreen etc. So imho it would be great to encapsulate all these things in the SDK.
Overall I understand the OP's disappointment about the low priority of Linux support. But since there was a lot of pressure to release an updated SDK to get all these DK2s shipped postponing a Linux release makes sense to me. But just this time
I think there are easier ways of resolving the 'extended desktop metaphor to a non-standard display' problem without these problems.
Co-author of Oculus Rift in Action
The problem with multiple monitors today is not X Window, it's the NVIDIA proprietary driver which doesn't play nice with standards (uncomplete XRandR support, recently broken Xinerama support, pushing proprietary TwinView instead).
Yeah there is Wayland but proprietary AMD drivers don't support it and it's not even on the roadmap. There are working FOSS drivers for Radeon cards but I tried them and they aren't even mature enough to run webgl shader demos properly. And their performance is so bad that you'd have low-end card performance with high end cards.
Nvidia promised eventual support, but that's not enough to base short term operation of the DK2 on it.
So how is the DK2 supposed to run in the mean time?
Q: Can I use the Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 on my gaming console?
A: No. The Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 only works on computer systems running Windows, Mac OS, or Linux.
:x
PowerColor RX 480 x2 | Samsung 960 Evo M.2 500GB | Seagate FireCuda SSHD 2TB | Phanteks ENTHOO EVOLV
Thanks, that is at least something. I was really hoping I can use the SDK with Linux when I get my DK2.
Would you say if the timing of SDK support is done so by design, did you plan to release the Mac and Linux SDKs later?
That should have been better communicated. I can deal with Windows, I just should have known I'd have to.
Well..... If it's not out for Mac and Linux then it isn't really out is it.
A DK2 that only supports Windows is a brick to me.
No ETA is pretty poor if you ask me.
You should still be able to use 0.3.x on Mac, but without positional tracking. It's not ideal, but neither is it useless for development.
Co-author of Oculus Rift in Action
For what I'm using it for, the positional tracking isn't that important.
Twitter:@psytecgames
Home:http://www.psytecgames.com/
Yes the "not even an ETA yet" thing sucks.
I'ts a brick on my OSX, even when I managed to get it running as an external monitor (and worked out how to rotate the screen) the eye lenses don't match the screen at all, I imported the Unity Pro Oculus 0.4 and it won't run, which is probably due to drivers!
I am lucky enough to have a windows 8.1 bootcamp, so I switched (I can't code but hey may as well try a few demos), I ran the tuscany (light with no anime) demo, and NOTHING else will work, I can't even get legacy mode working.
It's sad that with all the wait, I can't even use it on OSX.
Twitter:@psytecgames
Home:http://www.psytecgames.com/
No, what sucks is that they've withheld the source code for the runtime. Even if they'd only released the windows source code for the runtime along with the SDK, I'm sure someone would have hacked something together by now to allow OSX and Linux developers to work.
Co-author of Oculus Rift in Action
What's the reason for that? If they are bound by some 3rd party agreement that they can't release the sources they shouldn't have done that in the first place.
And if they don't release it because they don't want developers to have that much control any more even worse.
I get the strange suspicion that we might face a "boiling a frog" thing where more and more functionality is moved into a non-accessible non-modifiable portion of the SDK. Lets hope it doesn't come to that.
Meanwhile OVR is awfully quiet about these issues. :?
I agree with this, I really hope we see the source code for the Oculus service and the drivers released soon. They've effectively made a large part of the SDK closed source now by offloading tasks into the service.
Twitter:@psytecgames
Home:http://www.psytecgames.com/
PowerColor RX 480 x2 | Samsung 960 Evo M.2 500GB | Seagate FireCuda SSHD 2TB | Phanteks ENTHOO EVOLV