I chose Manjaro KDE as one of the SteamVR requirements is KDE Plasma. It’s required because it has a DRM function to allow SteamVR to take ownership of the DisplayPort.

A quick google search says that PopOS is Gnome based. But KDE can be installed over it? I might give it a go.

Windows 10 LTSC FTW!!! I just installed it and wow is it snappier and devoid of nearly all of those annoyances. I have no idea if productivity apps are affected by its stripped down nature but for Steam gaming it’s perfect. I get less lag spikes on steamVR.

I haven’t trusted Windows in years. This is just for gaming. I have a physically separate hot swappable Optane SSDs for Linux and Windows Gaming.

For those who will winge at me for not just switching to Linux. During this process I gave a concerted effort to give Linux a go and chose Manjaro KDE to try for steamVR gaming. It sucked. Once I had worked out that it was a permissions issue (It’s always a fucking permissions issue under Linux) and just ran it under the root account, there was extremely high latency for the VR compositor to HMD display. Completely unusable as it made me sick and that’s usually very hard. I tried X11 and Wayland. Direct and Non Direct output modes. No success.

Sound like another reason for the “free press” to get reforms about their accuracy reporting the “news”. I am typically against such restrictive legislation but if the news holds that much power, they need to see some regulation put in place.

I’m dying. 🤣

It’s silly to be an absolute open source purist when it comes to Valve anyway. They arguably deserve the money for the amazing ecosystem they have compared to the competition and are one of the biggest contributors to getting GUI frameworks and other Linux systems developed for the Linux based steam deck.

Valve will likely be the party that gets VR working mainstream on Linux for the upcoming Valve Decard standalone headset. You want to talk about the power of open source… well… an affordable VR headset that’s at least mostly open source in the software department that is also good for gaming. Sign me up. It’ll be miles better than what Facebook shits out for it measly 3-4 years of support.

I have an OG Vive that I use as the multiplayer setup for when friends come over and it’s still fully supported. 8 years later.

Valve may not be completely committed to everything open source but until someone out shines them they are the best option for flexibility and longevity.

Also someone need to be paid to develop open source software. This being the beginning of the topic and all. I’m happy for that to be Valve at the moment as they have shown the industry how to be better.

No I don’t work for Valve, I’m just sick of closed restrictive platforms as well as open janky platforms for gaming and hardware with fixed EOL dates. I see Valve as the best balance/compromise.

Sorry for my brains wall of text mode.

Steam is my dirty little secret when it come to my interest in open source. I believe that Valve will continue to hold it’s long tradition of user first business as a private business with lord Gaben at the helm (yes I know he’s mostly in the background at this point). I know that GOG exists however I really like steam forums, achievements, steam deck integration, steam link streaming and most importantly steamVR. Buying through GOG is going to massively impact my steamVR experience if you can even at all. steamVR compared to Oculus makes steamVR look like a very open platform. I hate Facebook with a passion for a variety of reasons so steamVR it is.

FOSS is a great tool/concept but at this time it doesn’t apply to gaming and I don’t really care to massively inconvenience my gaming experience for a small amount more of open source code. I say this as someone who daily drives a PinePhone, runs a Linux server with ZFS and is looking at a Framework laptop for my next laptop to run Linux on. Windows is still where gaming is at, especially for VR, and I don’t care to try and fight to run close source games on an open source operating system. Seems like a waste of effort to me.

I should add that I am broke myself so it’s a bit high and mighty of me to say people should donate when I have not done so yet.

I have started by at least supporting game developers on Steam. Mostly indie to medium size studio ones. Again, I can’t stand the AAA game DRM key crap.

I am interested in paying donations to free and open source software I regularly use and have into my workflow. I will completely ignore your project if you make me deal with license keys. The Grayjay method is ok but would prefer that code and buttons not be dedicated to getting in my way. I hope that the mentality of paying for what you use becomes more common in FOSS culture so that prompts aren’t needed.

That said if your broke, don’t dontate. Take advantage of it being free and when you get a good job again, then consider helping out the developers.

In recent personal experience, I recently changed the motherboard on my Winblows VR gaming PC and It wouldn’t recognize my legit product key anymore. I don’t have patience for DRM shit so I activated it with KMS. Activation keys are a pain in the arse.

I emphasized It’s use for VR gaming just in case someone tries to sell me on the Linux Proton compatibility system. Someday soon steamVR will hopefully have good compatibility and I will give it a go. However I will always at minimum be stuck with windows on a secondary ssd as I have some Oculus games I also like and Oculus+revive will likely never work under Linux.

Doesn’t this mean all text message traffic will flow through the control of Google servers?

I don’t know anything about how RCS works aside from a couple of comments talking about the Google servers problem.

Good. I don’t like sim trays. They’re small and flimsy and irritating and are easily lost. Not like here. Here everything is built-in and solid.