no Linux SDK ...

[martinP]

... at the launch of the Rift KIT. And no clue of when it will be available. (according to Oculus responses on Twitter). That is a sad news for me. Anyone else was planning to use other OS then Windows?
I think it is not necessary to have a shiny Linux SDK with tons of examples and working Unity 4 projects exported for Linux, just very basic support of the hw would be nice.

Martin

[zino]

I plan to use it from Linux, but I don't see that as much of a problem for what I'm doing since I use my own engine. If there aren't even enough specs to write up a libusb driver for the tracker without decompiling/sniffing the windows driver I might be a bit miffed though.

[shakesoda]

If there aren't even enough specs to write up a libusb driver for the tracker without decompiling/sniffing the windows driver I might be a bit miffed though.

Hopefully there will be, needing to reverse engineer the damn thing to make use of it would put a really bad taste in my mouth. Even moreso since I'm developing my game, which is designed for the Rift in the first place, primarily on Linux. Ouch!

edit: Had a look at the twitter log and it does say it's on the schedule, I just hope sooner than later.

[MSat]

I don't know what kind of info they're going to provide about that tracker, but since they're making some GPIO available on it hopefully they'll give us enough specs to work with.

[STRZ]

I've planned to use Linux too. Tbh, i hate Microsoft and i only use it for some gaming. But i understand that they may not have the capacity to target Linux now and want to get the things working on Windows first, because this is what most of the people still use. Anyway, i expect them to release the SDK for Linux too in the future, between shipment of the devkit and the consumer launch. Linux is the future, especially with Valve and many others getting ground there and the shift of M$ to a Apple like ecosystem and the endless possibilities for VR on Linux.

[Fredz]

I'm also using Linux at home and also intend to use it exclusively for the Rift. I've already a basic stereo 3D driver and tracking implemented (with the PS Move/PS Eye) on this system.

I hope the tracker will support the USB-HID specification to ease support, but I'm not sure the SDK will be really needed for stereo 3D rendering and warp correction. There are already numerous examples about how to do it yourself, and neither UDK nor Unity are supported on Linux atm anyway.

[ElMatarife]

I asked about GPL/LGPL or even BSD licensed libraries at Quakecon. There's a whole ton of open source games that are just begging to have Rift support dropped in. I haven't heard anything back yet. I suppose it's possible to just crib code from Doom3BFG GPL release, but LGPL is way more flexible for commercial titles.

I don't know that the USB HID has a class/profile for head tracking, but I guess a mouse class would work OK. I do think that support needs to be built into the really common SDL library used by something like 75% of Linux games and most of the multiplatform open source games.

[Mart]

I'm also using and developing for Linux. Especially with Valve's Linux push of the steam (box) front.

Not having a Linux SDK at launch is a disappointment, but I'm sure it won't be that far away.

[martinP]

Or maybe I am too much worried - looking at the name of the initial post of Palmer: Oculus "Rift" : An open-source HMD for Kickstarter
So I hope everything related to Rift construction and sw will be open-sourced when the Rift will be ready and Oculus don't have to care about other OSs then Win.
But then again I have not heard clear answer whether it will be open-sourced or not ...