Did they ever decide to care about Linux again? I returned my devkit because they said they didn't care about Linux a couple of weeks after I got mine. I won't send them more money unless they're going to support Linux.
> I won't send them more money unless they're going to support Linux.
Careful, they already said they support linux with the dk2 and we know how that went. Don't rely on what they say they "are going to do". Only buy it when they demonstrate complete and fully working linux support, not earlier.
You're right, but I spoke with support and made my case and since it had been such a short time since I bought it, they went ahead and did the refund.
>Careful, they already said they support linux with the dk2 and we know how that went. Don't rely on what they say they "are going to do". Only buy it when they demonstrate complete and fully working linux support, not earlier.
Sorry about my wording. I'm not going to buy it until there is actual support that I can actually use at the moment I open the box.
Being cross-platform is a design decision, and it effects how you go about developing your platform (what technologies you use, etc...). So the fear is, they'll go down the Microsoft path and find it difficult to bring in other platforms down the road.
This has been untrue for quite a while now [1][2]. In fact, it's starting to look like OpenGL on any platform (even Windows) is better than DirectX.
[1] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=win10-nv-...
[2] http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/133824-valve-opengl-is-fas...
Once you can compare an engine/game that has been optimized for OpenGL with equal effort than for D3D, then you can make a fair comparison.
But it's true, OpenGL drivers are often worse. Not just on Linux. Look at what happened when RAGE came out. Presumably that's also only because drivers for D3D are optimized and hacked on much, much more because there are so many AAA games that use it.
That there are already cases where AAA games run at times better on Linux than on Windows, even through a wrapper, is a very, very good sign for the performance to come if only a little more effort is put into the drivers and ports: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZYIa-6UooM
That said, Unity and Unreal are the engines that matter most for VR right now. Both have linux versions. Unity 5.3 was recently released and they have updated their OpenGL backend significantly. I've not seen benchmarks yet...
Of course, the end result is that you keep strengthening the "standard" platform and thus there's never critical mass for "alternative" platforms (for different values of "standard" and "alternative" depending on product), and so the cycle repeats itself.
But in the end Oculus is there to make money and making new hardware is very hard, let alone a whole new type of hardware.
This, I agree, is unfortunate, but I can't imagine how hard it must be to develop something like this for Linux, with the myriad of 3d drivers, sound drivers, etc. If you end up developing for say, Ubuntu Desktop only, then probably a lot of people would still complain and say "hey, Ubuntu is not the only Linux out there you know!".
Maybe Steam will take advantage of this and develop for Linux as well, thus putting pressure (and opening the market a bit) on competitors to move into this "alternative" market.