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Linux Compatibility With VR Goggles?

Posted by kdawson on from the sees-things-we-don't dept.

WorldWarCheese writes "Many's the time I wish I had a little more mobility or comfort with my computer. Laptops are OK, but anyone interested can see right onto my screen; and a laptop doesn't quite have that 'cool' factor that VR goggles / headsets do. The problem is, whenever I've looked at the options, Linux compatibility is not mentioned. Is there a VR headset out there that is compatible with Ubuntu? If not, what could I do to make it compatible, and how feasible would that be?"

5 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. The VR Goggles... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...they do nothing!

  2. Re:VR goggles, eh? by CRCulver · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Congratulations, your half-way to becoming the newest member of the Borg collective! Just need a machine suit and a bunch of implants, and the transition to your new life is complete.

    Kevin Warwick has him beat. I'm surprised he didn't immediately pop up in a first post. He's a well-known figure in nerd subculture. If you haven't heard about his odd lifestyle choices yet, his autobiography I, Cyborg does much to explain his thinking.

  3. There's the Z800 by zilt · · Score: 5, Informative

    I wrote a linux kernel driver for the eMagin z800 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z800_3DVisor ) HMD available here: http://antimass.org/z800/

    I will be updating it over the holidays to the latest kernel release as I've finally got some time to work on it.

  4. Re:My name is Kent Mcclure by YourExperiment · · Score: 5, Funny

    Your name is Kent Mcclure... I may remember you from such Slashdot stories as "Jobs Not Giving This Year's Macworld Keynote" and "How Do I Manage Seasoned Programmers?"

  5. no freaking way by Speare · · Score: 5, Informative

    In my last contract, I worked a VR lab with lots of toys. I have tried everything from $60 to $40,000 head mounted displays. In case you're wondering, the $60 option is an NTSC TV fed into a dimly lit monoscopic visor, while for $40,000 you get an amazing 1280x1024 digital LCD stereoscopic per eye at 90Hz. Nowhere in that range is a device that you can wear to use a GUI or a CLI interface for more than about 40 minutes. Even if your eyeball's diopter requirements are calibrated very carefully, even if your visual acuity is excellent, even if the contrast is good and the font sizes are large and beautiful, you will just not be well-served by reading text on a near-range display for more time than that.

    It may be cute in the movies, but there are no options for head mounted displays that will do what you want to do, essentially live in the visor.

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