So, Linux people did what we’ve always done in that situation, and started reverse-engineering driver support without help from the vendor. At the time, people were still holding out hope that Oculus would release Linux support, but that possibility disappeared the longer things went on. I got the original Oculus Rift CV1 toward the end of 2016. Jan Schmidt: I always want to be able to do all the things on my Linux computer that I can on other platforms. It has rpmfusion enabled, because I need the multimedia pieces that Fedora can’t distribute upstream, and I have a handful of other things compiled from source – packages for VR development and machine learning that aren’t packaged for Fedora yet.Ĭhristian Schaller: So you are leading the development of a Linux driver for the Oculus Rift headset, what made you decide to take on that project? Jan Schmidt: I use a fairly standard Fedora Workstation. It integrates (and often drives) projects that are changing the way the Linux desktop works – like systemd and PipeWire, and strikes a good balance between staying up to date on those developments without having to deal with the instability of compiling everything myself.Ĭhristian Schaller: So tell us a little about your Fedora Workstation setup? Using any special tools or configurations? I’ve used lots of distributions over the years, but settled on Fedora Linux for my main workstation. It’s been my primary operating system since then. I first installed Linux in 1995 while at university. GStreamer is a big and lively project used all over the world, so helping to build that is very rewarding. We use that consulting as a way of funding development upstream on GStreamer, and other open source projects depending on our personal interests. Together with some friends, I run a consultancy called Centricular, where we help people and companies build multimedia projects and products. Jan Schmidt: I work on the GStreamer multimedia framework, which I’ve been involved in since 2003. They talk about the general state of VR under Linux, Jan’s use of Fedora Workstation, and his specific work on his driver.Ĭhristian Schaller: Hi Jan, tell us a little about yourself, like what do you do for a living, how did you get into Linux and Fedora Workstation? In this interview Christian Schaller speaks with Jan Schmidt who is working on reverse engineering a driver for the Oculus Rift VR headset. Thanks to Valve there is full support for the HTC headsets under Linux, and thanks to community developers there is also work happening to support the Oculus headsets under Linux. One area of computing that is rapidly evolving and becoming more and more popular is that of Virtual Reality and Augmented reality.
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