Linux Notes

After many years I finally got OpenVR working on Linux. Unfortunately I'm unsure which tactics were ultimately required to get it to work. Here are some things I tried toward the end when it finally started working:

• My setup: Ubuntu 20 LTS; HTC Vive (original) vr headset; GTX 970 GPU
• Activate the SteamVR Beta 1.14 for Linux. I cycled through all the beta options many times; but this is the one that was active when I finally got it working
• Dual boot to Windows and make sure SteamVR is working on Windows
• Connect the HTC Vive link box to the DisplayPort connector on the GPU. On my system the HTC Vive display remains black with this connection, but the SteamVR software got a bit further than it had before with this setup, and I was later able to reestablish the HDMI connection and see the VR display in the headset.
• Connect only one physical monitor.
• Uninstall and reinstall the nvidia display driver (version 470 is the latest at the time of this writing)
• Power cycle the lighthouses if they don't turn green in SteamVR
• Power cycle the HTC Vive link box, especially after switching between HDMI and DisplayPort connection
• Cold restart the computer
• Read the logs in ~/.steam/steam/logs for hints about what to install
• Maybe install some of these packages: glslang-tools libx11-dev qt5-default steam steam-devices vulkan-utils nvidia-driver-470 libsdl2-dev libcurl4:i386