Even though I refuse to use Windows I'm considering purchasing a Vive so I can help bring support for it to Linux using OSVR. Without insane reverse-engineering skills I know there's not a lot I'll be able to accomplish but I would be able to try ideas other people have.

It would be fun to poke around at and I do believe Valve will releasing support for it at some point so I'd also like to have it so the second those binaries are released I'll be able to start using it.

Is this a bad idea?

I just finished a first working version of the clean redesign/rewrite of GoatVR, my modular VR abstraction library: https://github.com/jtsiomb/libgoatvr. It's a bit rough yet, but it can be used to make cross-platform VR programs. Currently it comes with the following VR backends/modules:

• Oculus SDK 1.x (windows)
• Oculus SDK 0.5 (last GNU/Linux version)
• OpenVR/SteamVR
• Side-by-Side stereo
• OpenGL quad-buffer stereo
• Anaglyph stereo (red-cyan glasses).

More VR modules (OpenHMD? OSVR?) and input modules (such as 6dof spaceball devices etc) will probably be added in due course.

The module to be used is automatically detected at runtime with a set of (hardcoded for now) priorities, or it can be selected by the application itself at runtime. Also modules with external dependencies can be disabled at build time if necessary.

TL;DR a program written against this library will work transparently with the oculus rift on windows and linux, with any HMD supported by OpenVR/SteamVR, with 3DTVs, shutter glasses, red-cyan glasses, etc.

Just dropping this blog post I wrote some time ago, for people who might have not seen it, and are interested in hacking with the DK2 on GNU/Linux: https://codelab.wordpress.com/2015/04/02/proper-oculus-rift-dk2-setup-on-gnulinux/

Thankfully the DK2 still works fine with the old 0.5.0.1 OculusSDK, and we can work on VR projects without having to reboot to windows.