If you have a wireless VR headset and a Linux system, you might be excited to know that Valve's Steam Link VR now appears to actually work.
Valve haven't actually formally announced it yet, but with SteamVR Beta 2.13.2 you should be able to use Steam Link to connect up to your Linux PC to play games on Meta Quest headsets. This Steam Link VR feature originally launched for Windows back in November 2023, so we've been waiting quite some time for this to arrive on Linux - where VR has historically not been great.
On Valve's GitHub page there's a bug thread with multiple confirmed reports of it working, although it's clearly still a work in progress with game support being limited as some don't work at all yet. Also keep in mind that Steam Flatpak is not a supported configuration for it, you'll need a proper Steam package installed.
Nice to see progress on it though, as eventually that will be another gap with Windows gaming closed off giving more people a chance to switch to Linux without losing access to streaming their VR games.
My Valve Index continues chugging along (much better since moving from NVIDIA to an AMD GPU), although perhaps I'll have to upgrade soon to Valve's next VR kit or whatever the Steam Frame turns out to be.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
About the author - Liam Dawe
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly.
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I have working HMD on Linux gentoo. HP reverb G2. Just HMD, no controllers.
It does work well enough for me to play a couple of virtual reality from coach games. I had it working for about half year or more. Its not even Valve affiliated.
"Also keep in mind that Steam Flatpak is not a supported configuration for it, you'll need a proper Steam package installed." - you can also install steam from tar gz file, binary way.
It does work well enough for me to play a couple of virtual reality from coach games. I had it working for about half year or more. Its not even Valve affiliated.
"Also keep in mind that Steam Flatpak is not a supported configuration for it, you'll need a proper Steam package installed." - you can also install steam from tar gz file, binary way.
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So cool to see Steam Link VR finally coming. It was shortly in the beta client but got removed again in may: https://nitter.poast.org/SadlyItsBradley/status/1918820041312678099 [External Link]
It's very much in beta though. Yesterday the Quest App was completely unresponsive to any input, no matter if I purged and re-installed it. Today (I changed nothing, except sleeping) it just worked to pair my Ubuntu 24.04 VR notebook. Needs mesa 25.2.1 and/or nVidia 575.64.5. Though it does show the "empty room" (Steam VR home is disabled) and the Steam VR dashboard, no game really worked for me. After a game started, I might see its splash screen, but as soon as the game should render I'm in a black void. Opening the Steam VR dashboad does show the game too though, closing the dashboard again and I'm in limbo. Somebody mentioned the game started rendering when they toggled the dashboard, but that just crashes the game for me after a few tries.
Instead I tried WiVRn today, that has been around a bit longer, uses Monado and can be build kinda easily via Envision. As I'm a bit familiar with Monado already, have it up and running with my Valve Index, with wlx-overlay, WiVRn worked pretty well. I need to tinker around with its settings though, as compression hit hard on the visuals.
Nonetheless, having Steam Link VR now in beta is a really good sign. Looks like Steam Frame is full steam ahead!
It's very much in beta though. Yesterday the Quest App was completely unresponsive to any input, no matter if I purged and re-installed it. Today (I changed nothing, except sleeping) it just worked to pair my Ubuntu 24.04 VR notebook. Needs mesa 25.2.1 and/or nVidia 575.64.5. Though it does show the "empty room" (Steam VR home is disabled) and the Steam VR dashboard, no game really worked for me. After a game started, I might see its splash screen, but as soon as the game should render I'm in a black void. Opening the Steam VR dashboad does show the game too though, closing the dashboard again and I'm in limbo. Somebody mentioned the game started rendering when they toggled the dashboard, but that just crashes the game for me after a few tries.
Instead I tried WiVRn today, that has been around a bit longer, uses Monado and can be build kinda easily via Envision. As I'm a bit familiar with Monado already, have it up and running with my Valve Index, with wlx-overlay, WiVRn worked pretty well. I need to tinker around with its settings though, as compression hit hard on the visuals.
Nonetheless, having Steam Link VR now in beta is a really good sign. Looks like Steam Frame is full steam ahead!
2 Likes
Oh HELL yeah! ALVR is pretty good too though, but would be nice to have native support from Steam :).
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I wish we could get the video through USB C support as well for the headset
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After I disabled wlx-overlay in the autostart options of Steam VR, games started to work via Steam Link VR.
Just now I can only play like one game, after quitting the game, either Steam VR, Steam or something else locks up
Yet, it's so cool to see this progressing and starting to work.
Just now I can only play like one game, after quitting the game, either Steam VR, Steam or something else locks up
Yet, it's so cool to see this progressing and starting to work.
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This is great news! Going to have to wait for Fedora to update Mesa to 25.2.1, I suspect that will arrive in Fedora 43 later this year.
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although it's clearly still a work in progress with game support being limited as some don't work at all yetIt is very much a work in progress, since on my Bazzite machine, it requires command line arguments to work properly, and even then, it only seems to work with 2 games (Half Life: Alyx and Propogation VR). Everything else just crashes.
Last edited by Pyretic on 13 Sep 2025 at 10:10 am UTC
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My Bigscreen Beyond 1 finally started working last week running Linux after 2 years of waiting for NVidia to fix it (in 580 driver).
Something else will probably break when I'm going to try VR again this weekend, I think Smooth Motion is not supported, so probably it will still be a terrible experience. Did see other people complain on Nvidia forums about frame drops with NVidia + Linux + VR.
Something else will probably break when I'm going to try VR again this weekend, I think Smooth Motion is not supported, so probably it will still be a terrible experience. Did see other people complain on Nvidia forums about frame drops with NVidia + Linux + VR.
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I'm clearly too much of a n00b (or, alternatively, far too old!) to make sense of things here. I have a Linux machine. I have a Quest 2 headset. What am I installing, exactly, on which device(s), to make this work? I'd be interested in seeing Half Life Alyx for example.
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andypiper: I'm clearly too much of a n00b (or, alternatively, far too old!) to make sense of things here. I have a Linux machine. I have a Quest 2 headset. What am I installing, exactly, on which device(s), to make this work? I'd be interested in seeing Half Life Alyx for example.Don't worry about asking for help, that's how communities thrive!
- Install Steam Link on your Quest via the Horizon Store
- Install SteamVR on your PC, plus whatever VR game you want to play on your PC (I recommend Propagation VR or Half Life: Alyx for now)
- Open SteamVR
- Open Steam Link and connect to your PC when it shows up
- You should now see the SteamVR Environment. Click the Menu Button to open your Steam Library and select the game you want to play.
- Enjoy!
2 Likes
Does this mean that steam link VR might work on Steam deck? I have not personally tried to do this but I am aware of others who have gotten alvr working on the steam deck. Obviously I would not expect 60 FPS for most things, but it would be nice to fool around with.
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