posts/steam-linux-alvr-quest2/

[giscus[bot]]

posts/steam-linux-alvr-quest2/

Findings, thoughts, tutorials, work. Pieces of my mind!

https://pawamoy.github.io/posts/steam-linux-alvr-quest2/

[Utopiah]

Hi, thanks for the in depth (sorry for the pun) article but Steam Link does work on Linux, sadly streaming VR does not work on Linux, at least today when I tried and despite having SteamVR installed. Maybe some tinkering is required.

[pawamoy]

Hey, thanks! Oh OK so it's just the VR streaming part that doesn't work. I actually wasn't sure if Steam Link was only meant for VR or not 🙂

By the way, in the article when I say "it doesn't work on Linux", I mean that once in the headset, the Steam Link app says that it cannot stream from my Linux computer (it doesn't say why though).

[Utopiah]

Yes I have the same error message, which is indeed surprising as everything seems to work (SteamVR on desktop, Steam Link installed on both). Well, ALVR still works well for now, just a tiny bit more tinkering required. Hopefully Valve can find a solution, either software or hardware.

[patrickpluto]

I came here to comment, that an official ALVR app has been available on the Meta Quest Store since the 6. July.
https://www.meta.com/en-gb/experiences/7674846229245715/
This is exciting news, as it removes the need to do the entire SideQuest part!

[patrickpluto]

Also some other thoughts about the guide, that may be useful to know:
pipewire has become the defacto standard in the linux world, the latest Fedora and Ubuntu releases for example already use it, and Linux Mint will add it in the next update, which will happen in the next month or two.

Compiling ALVR from source may not be the best plan of action. It is best to just download the github release. The AUR now also has alvr-bin, which is compiled already. This also removes the need to install the rust toolchains.

All in all, these few happenings have made ALVR trivial to set up. You need to only really download ALVR from the github, run the executable and install the (now on the official Quest Store) ALVR application.

I've got to say, this is a huge win for linux gaming, I'd say this is even easier now than using the official Meta app on Windows.

[pawamoy]

Wow, awesome! Thank you so much for all this information 🙂 I'll update the post 😄

[AndKe]

apparently Steam Link works on Linux too now.
Does it mean we do not have to use ALVR ? - pros/cons between those two?

[pawamoy]

Thanks for the update! I'll try to set things up with Steam Link soon to get an opinion. In theory yes, if Steam Link works, you don't need ALVR.

The immediate pros with Steam Link IMO are the simplicity of setup.