I Want to Enjoy VR on Ubuntu Too! — Checking Whether a PC I Use as My Local-AI Server Can Also Run VR

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I run Ubuntu on my desktop PC for local AI. That PC, with an RTX 3090 in it, handles both language models and image generation. I can also boot into Windows, but obviously, booting into Windows stops it from working as my local-AI server.

At some point I wanted to use the same PC for VR too, without shutting down its server duties. If VR would just boot straight off Ubuntu, that would solve it.

Seven years ago I bought an Oculus Quest and connected it to a PC over Wi-Fi for a while. I still have a Quest 2 on hand.

So, I looked into how to run VR on Ubuntu.

This article records what I found out about what is available for running VR on Ubuntu, and what is missing.

This reflects the situation as of September 2026.

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What I Checked — Scope and Sources

I looked at the tools for sending video from Linux to a VR headset as of September 2026, and their official standing. I referenced Valve’s product page, public repositories from Valve and various projects, Meta’s support pages, and material compiled by people running VR on Linux. Sources are listed at the end of the article.

Everything below is a summary of what is written in published material and what other users have reported.

The PC configuration that is the starting point here is described in another article.

My Whole Local AI Setup, Published — A Build Example with Ubuntu + RTX 3090 + Ollama + ComfyUI

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Does Meta’s Own Connection Work on Linux?

Meta itself provides two ways to connect a Meta Quest-series HMD to a PC: a cable connection, and the wireless Air Link. Both require installing Meta’s own software on the PC side.

Meta’s support page lists supported operating systems as a requirement, and only two are listed: Windows 10 and Windows 11. Linux is not mentioned. The developer documentation likewise states that Link is “compatible with Windows 10 or later only." I could not find any official statement about future support either.

An article I wrote seven years ago, back when it was still the Oculus Quest, covered connecting it to a PC over Wi-Fi as a stand-in for a tethered headset. That article is about Windows, but if anyone out there is doing the same thing on Ubuntu, it might still be useful.

Oculus Quest Review: Connecting to a PC over Wi-Fi to Use It in Place of an Oculus Rift S

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Two Routes Still Open on the Linux Side

With no official Meta support here, there are two tools that send video from the Linux side to the headset. Both compress the picture rendered on the PC, send it wirelessly, and have the headset receive and display it.

From an Ubuntu PC to a Quest-series headset: the path the picture takes
Hardware
Desktop PC
RTX 3090
→
Base
Ubuntu
NVIDIA driver
→
Sender, option 1
Steam Link
Needs SteamVR
Sender, option 2
WiVRn
+ xrizer
→
Hardware
Quest series
Wireless
Meta’s own Air Link and Link cable do not appear in this diagram, because the PC-side software only exists for Windows.

Steam Link — the Route Valve Itself Distributes

The first is Steam Link. You install a free app on the Quest side and connect it to SteamVR on the PC side. It has been available for Windows since November 2023.

For Linux, Valve has issued no official statement. Even so, multiple reports on Valve’s bug-tracking forum describe it connecting to a Linux PC from SteamVR beta 2.13.2 onward. The supported-OS field for the Steam Link app listed on Meta’s store still says Windows 10 or later, as of now.

It does not appear to have been left untouched, though. The changelog for SteamVR beta 2.16.3, released April 13, 2026, lists three Linux-related fixes: first, a change to how the graphics card for sending video is chosen — instead of picking whichever device is found first, it now picks the most suitable one; second, a workaround for pushing a 240 Mbit/s stream through on NVIDIA cards; third, an adjustment to send timing to curb latency spikes. Working reports keep piling up, and Valve keeps making changes — that seems to be where things stand.

Dated reports of it actually working exist too: “Since the SteamVR update that made Steam Link usable on Linux, SteamVR using the official Steam Link app has been working without issue." The conditions were Quest 3, AMD, November 30, 2025. I have not tried this myself.

One caveat: Steam installed via Flatpak is reportedly excluded. You need the distribution’s native package.

WiVRn — the Route Built on the Linux Side

The second is WiVRn, software for streaming from a Linux PC to Android-based headsets, built on top of a foundation called Monado. Material from people running VR on Linux lists this as the recommended option.

The official compatibility table lists everything from the Quest 1 through the Quest Pro, with the whole Quest line checked off. Pico and HTC models are included too. VR devices that do not run Android are not supported.

The latest version is v26.6.2, released July 14, 2026. v26.6, from June 2026, fixed a bug in video compression on NVIDIA graphics cards. v26.2, from February 2026, added support for a communication spec called SolarXR, the scheme that body trackers use to talk to the system.

For setup, the official docs list having Avahi (a device-discovery mechanism) running, and opening UDP port 5353 plus UDP/TCP port 9757. Playing Steam games in VR requires a separate conversion tool, covered below.

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Where Does the Linux Build of SteamVR Stand Right Now?

When you use Steam Link, SteamVR runs on the PC side. About the Linux build of SteamVR, Valve writes this in its own public repository: “This is a development build. It is intended to let developers start building SteamVR content for Linux. Supported hardware is limited."

So it is not positioned as a finished product for people who just want to play. As for the runtime environment, a relatively recent distribution and the latest graphics driver are called for, with Ubuntu 20 or later and Arch given as examples.

Material from people running VR on Linux also describes SteamVR as running on Linux as-is, but carrying bugs, unimplemented features, and performance issues. Even so, fixes keep coming, as with 2.16.3 above — it does not look stalled.

There is also a report that one setting change made a difference: setting enableLinuxVulkanAsync to true inside the steamvr.vrsettings config file. After that, it became mostly playable, according to the report. The conditions were Valve Index, NVIDIA, December 21, 2025. It is described as a setting related to the mechanism that compensates for dropped frames. I have not tried this myself.

Why ALVR Is No Longer Recommended

ALVR is the tool whose name came up for a long time as the way to connect a Quest to Linux. As of September 2026, that has changed.

The material states: “ALVR is not recommended. Effort toward Linux support has not been sustained, and development is effectively stalled." It further states plainly that “the Linux build of ALVR does not work on SteamVR 2.16.7 or later." It directs users to WiVRn or Steam Link instead.

The same symptom shows up on SteamVR’s bug-report forum too: error 303 after upgrading to the 2.16 line, or the headset going completely black. Reports come in from Arch, Ubuntu, Fedora, and others, with notes that it worked fine up through 2.15. If you follow an old guide and start with ALVR, this looks like where you would get stuck.

A Tool for Bridging Old Conventions to New Ones

One more name that comes up around running VR on Linux. There are two generations of the convention games use to talk to a headset: the older one is called OpenVR, the newer one OpenXR. In a setup that does not use SteamVR, you need a piece that bridges a game written for the old convention onto the new one.

NameStatus
xrizerThe current recommendation. Though the author itself describes it as “still immature — a lot of things may be broken"
OpenCompositeDevelopment has stopped since 2024; reportedly superseded by xrizer
VapoRA third option that handles, at a lower layer, what xrizer struggles with

WiVRn’s own documentation also states that running Steam games requires either xrizer or OpenComposite. Adding one piece is not a big deal on its own, but it is worth knowing this extra layer exists.

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The Device Is Visible, But Nothing Is Talking to It

Lay all of this out, and a shape emerges in the relationship between the Quest series and Ubuntu. Plug it in with a cable, and the PC recognises it as a device. Nothing is broken, and the connection is not bad. What is missing is the software that talks to that device.

This is the same shape as stage 2 in the classification I used on this blog when laying out external-GPU failures: the add-in card shows up in the device list, but the driver never loads, and it stalls right there. The device itself is visible; only the counterpart that should be talking to it is missing.

What makes this shape tricky, I think, is that it tempts you to look for the cause on the device side. Swap the cable, swap the port, reboot repeatedly — nothing changes. What needs to change is the thing doing the talking. For the Quest series, the answer is one of two things: Steam Link or WiVRn.

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Does VRChat Run on Ubuntu?

Most people who come to this blog for VR content are here for VRChat. I looked into this too.

VRChat has no Linux build; you run the Windows build on top of a layer called Proton. Because it bundles anti-cheat software, it reportedly used to sometimes launch and sometimes not. On this point, the material states: “sometime in October or November 2024, these anti-cheat errors resolved themselves." It goes on: “the race condition that made launching a gamble every time is no longer a headache." It also notes: “if the anti-cheat kicks you with a failure prompt, just relaunch until it gets through."

Three things are flagged as easy to trip over.

  • The in-world video player. Using the Proton-GE-RTSP build is reported to be stable, including for playing live streams
  • Audio. On setups using PipeWire, sound is reported to occasionally cut out for a few seconds under load
  • Virtual machines and cloud PCs. These are blocked by the anti-cheat, so running Windows in a VM as a workaround is reportedly not an option

What Kind of Frame Rate Do You Get in a Crowded World?

People running VR on Linux collect user reports — headset model, graphics card, and distribution attached — into a database organised by game. VRChat’s page had dated reports lined up too. I have pulled the ones closest to my own conditions. I have not tried any of these myself.

What the report saysConditions
“With WiVRn, 90fps holds steady, and it runs very well even in worlds packed with people. ALVR has issues with either latency or reprojection."Quest 2 / AMD / 2025-12-25
“Since the SteamVR update that made Steam Link usable on Linux, SteamVR using the official Steam Link app has been working without issue. VRChat also runs fine on WiVRn."Quest 3 / AMD / 2025-11-30
“On SteamVR you need to set enableLinuxVulkanAsync to true, and after that it became mostly playable."Valve Index / NVIDIA / 2025-12-21
“The experience through Monado and OpenComposite is solid — on par with Windows, or better in some cases."Valve Index / NVIDIA / February 2025
“With WiVRn, games crash frequently, or the whole system freezes. That said, overall it’s far smoother and sharper."An example where reporters’ assessments diverge
“On the Quest side, buttons take an extremely long time to respond even inside the streaming app’s menus, and the same happens in-game, making it unplayable. Because of this I haven’t been able to try WiVRn."Quest 2 / NVIDIA / 2025-10-09

The report citing 90fps used a Quest 2, but with an AMD graphics card. Mine is NVIDIA, so it does not carry over directly. For the same Quest 2 and NVIDIA combination, it is the report describing trouble that turns up instead. I have not tried either of these myself.

One thing that keeps coming up across these reports is the mechanism that compensates for dropped frames. VRChat frequently cannot render all the way up to the headset’s frame-rate ceiling, and reprojection fills the gap. Multiple reports state that this feature was unreliable on Linux’s SteamVR for a long time: “if you can’t get close to the ceiling, you get flicker and ghosting," and “so holding a high frame rate becomes very important." I have not tried this myself.

I could not find numbers measured under matching conditions against Windows. Everything listed above is a report a user wrote about their own setup.

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Things to Watch for With NVIDIA Graphics Cards

A PC built for local AI is likely to have an NVIDIA card in it — mine is an RTX 3090 too. On this point, WiVRn’s official documentation has a candid caveat.

“WiVRn is not sufficiently optimised for NVIDIA GPUs, because few developers have NVIDIA hardware. At render resolutions above the default, motion-to-photon latency may degrade significantly."

That is what is written about the recommended tool itself. Improvements are ongoing — the June 2026 release fixed a video-compression bug on NVIDIA — but it still reads as though going to higher resolutions may work against you.

On driver versions, SteamVR’s side only says “the latest graphics driver," without a specific number. Some third-party material cites specific numbers, but since I could not verify the primary source, I am leaving that out here.

Separately, a record of running two graphics cards at once for local AI is compiled in another article.

Running Local AI to the Limit with Two GPUs — A Real-World Example of RTX 3090 + RTX 3060 Running Together

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How Does Steam Frame Change This Picture?

Everything so far has been about chasing, from the Linux side, mechanisms built for Windows. In November 2025, Valve offered an answer from a different direction: a VR headset called Steam Frame.

According to Valve’s product page, it is a wireless headset-and-controller pairing aimed at handling your whole Steam library, and it also works standalone. The official line: “Steam Frame is a PC — it runs SteamOS on a Snapdragon 8-series processor."

https://store.steampowered.com/hardware/steamframe

Where Does This Matter for the Ubuntu Story?

Full specs have been published in detail, but only four points matter for this article.

  • The OS is SteamOS 3, built on Arch Linux. The inside of the headset runs Linux
  • The processor is a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, using the ARM instruction set — a different shape from the x86 used in PCs
  • It is built to be playable standalone, without connecting to a PC
  • Officially named as streaming sources are the Steam Deck and the Steam Machine — both of which also run SteamOS

Fine-grained specs like the display and weight, and how it compares to other headsets, are covered in a separate article.

One headline feature is a mechanism that allocates streaming detail by tracking where your eyes are looking. On the Japanese official page it is called “foveated streaming." It is described as “a new feature that optimises detail in the area you’re looking at, typically improving image quality and effective bandwidth by more than 10x." On how it works: “using low-latency eye-tracking data to deliver the highest-quality pixels only where the user is looking." It further states: “all of this processing happens without the user noticing, and it works across all content in your Steam library" — meaning it is not limited to titles built for VR.

The Japanese page also went into more detail on the wireless side: “one wireless link is dedicated to audio and visual streaming, and the other connects to Wi-Fi. There are two dedicated links, so there is no bandwidth contention." The route used for streaming and the route used for everyday networking are separated from the start.

When you connect a Quest-series headset over home Wi-Fi, both the video stream and everyday network traffic go over the same radio. WiVRn’s own guidance, in fact, lists “turn off Wi-Fi if you’re connecting over USB" and “connect over USB, or use a better Wi-Fi router" as remedies when video breaks up or lags. Steam Frame has that separation built into the hardware from the start.

Windows games are built for the x86 instruction set, and the Steam Frame’s processor uses the different ARM format. Reporting has named FEX as the mechanism that bridges this gap; I could not find that mentioned on the official product page.

Release Date and Price?

This is probably what everyone most wants to know. As of checking the official product page on September 7, 2026, here is where things stood.

  • No release date is given. The only mention of timing is a single line, “Steam’s hardware family rolls out formally in the first half of 2026" — likely leftover wording from the announcement
  • No price is given either
  • There is no buy button. The only option is joining a wishlist, which reads as meaning it is not yet purchasable
  • For Japan specifically, it explicitly states: “In Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, it will be offered through KOMODO." Japan’s price and release date are not disclosed

I am marking release date and price as 【unconfirmed】. Media reports have floated expected prices, but Valve itself has not put out a number.

Can You Stream from a Linux PC?

From the standpoint of an Ubuntu user, this is the real question. The official product page describes streaming sources this way: “Stream from your PC, laptop, Steam Deck, or Steam Machine."

Both the Steam Deck and Steam Machine listed here run SteamOS, which is built on Arch Linux. It seems reasonable to think that streaming VR from a Linux PC falls within what Valve has in mind 【inference】.

That said, this is not a guarantee that it “works on my Ubuntu." What the official page names are Valve’s own SteamOS machines. How it behaves on a general-purpose distribution is something that can only be confirmed after release.

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What a Quest Alone Cannot Reach

The VR articles that get the most reads on this blog cover full-body tracking, which captures whole-body movement, and face tracking, which captures expressions. With only a Quest-series headset on hand, I checked whether either of these is within reach.

The result: neither works with a Quest series device alone, for separate reasons.

GoalPossible with just the Quest series?What’s missing
Full-body trackingNoRequires body-worn trackers. On the Linux side, WiVRn added SolarXR support in its February 2026 release
Face trackingPro onlyWithin the Quest line, only the Quest Pro has the hardware to track your face and eyes

All I have on hand is the headset — I no longer have any trackers. Even if I find a path to running VR on Ubuntu, full-body and face tracking beyond that would mean starting over from buying the gear. I want to be upfront about that.

So, assuming I bought the gear, would it work on Linux? I looked into that too.

How Is the Tracker Side Handled on Linux?

SlimeVR, the name that comes up for full-body trackers, officially provides Linux builds: a deb for Ubuntu/Debian, an rpm for Fedora, an AppImage that runs anywhere, Flathub, and an Arch user repository. This is a different situation from the Quest.

There are three ways to connect it, and material from people running VR on Linux attaches an assessment to each.

Connection methodHow it’s described
Via the SteamVR driver“Not recommended, due to general instability"
Via VRChat’s OSC“Only usable within VRChat"; “accuracy currently suffers due to OSC’s limitations"
Via Monado / WiVRnThe recommended option; “reported to give results on par with the native SteamVR driver"

That the recommended path runs through WiVRn lines up with WiVRn already coming up as the streaming tool of choice. If you’re aiming for full-body tracking on Linux, the entry point you choose looks like it carries straight through.

Reports of it working exist too: “SlimeVR mostly works if you build the branch with SolarXR support in Envision, and the OSC method also works well" — one report (Valve Index, NVIDIA, February 2025). Others line up as well: “Tundra trackers work fine either way," and, on the SteamVR side, “full-body tracking works." I have not tried any of these myself.

Does Face Capture Work on Linux?

VRCFaceTracking is the tool that passes facial expressions to a VRChat avatar. This is the murky one.

A request for Linux support was closed as “completed" on August 13, 2026. The author writes: “put up an experimental avalonia branch on Steam"; “eventually plan to move the UI foundation off WinUI3 and target Avalonia." Avalonia is a foundation that also runs on Linux.

Meanwhile, looking at the Steam product listing as of September 7, 2026, the only supported platform is Windows. The system-requirements field lists only Windows 10 and Windows 11. It sits in a middle state — you can neither call it “Windows-only" nor “runs on Linux." If you want to get as far as face capture, this looks like something to wait on an announcement for.

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Comparing the Four Routes

Laid out together, the routes for connecting a Quest-series headset to an Ubuntu PC come down to these four.

RouteWorks on Linux?RequiresKnown limits
Meta Air Link / Link cableNo—Meta officially states supported OS as Windows 10/11 only
Steam LinkReports say it worksSteamVR (native package) / the Quest-side appFlatpak Steam reportedly excluded. No official Valve guidance found
WiVRnRecommendedwivrn-server + xrizer / Avahi / open portsOfficial docs state NVIDIA optimisation is not yet mature
ALVRNot recommended—Reportedly does not work on SteamVR 2.16.7+. Development described as effectively stalled

If I had to pick one route to try first as of September 2026, it would be WiVRn — it’s the recommended option, the Quest series is in its official compatibility table, and updates keep coming. If the NVIDIA caveat concerns you, trying Steam Link first is a reasonable order too.

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What I Have Not Confirmed This Time

  • Whether WiVRn and Steam Link actually connect on my own setup. I have installed neither
  • Video latency under an RTX 3090 and wired 1Gbps conditions. I have not measured any numbers
  • What frame rate VRChat delivers in a crowded world. I included user reports in the body, but have not tried it on my own setup. I could also not find numbers measured under matching conditions against Windows
  • Which NVIDIA driver version is required. SteamVR’s side gives no number, and I could not obtain third-party material that does cite one
  • How much the enableLinuxVulkanAsync setting actually changes things. Reports exist of it making a difference, but I have not set it myself
  • Steam Frame’s release date, price, and price in Japan. None of these are disclosed officially
  • Whether Steam Frame works from a general Ubuntu install. What the official page names are Valve’s own SteamOS machines
  • How much accuracy differs across SlimeVR’s three connection methods. I don’t own trackers, so I am relaying the material’s description as-is
  • How far VRCFaceTracking’s experimental build runs on Linux. Not tried
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Closing

If you want to run VR on a PC set up with Ubuntu for local AI, a path that avoids going back to Windows does exist. But Meta’s own entry point is closed, so it starts with choosing Steam Link or WiVRn yourself. As of September 2026, WiVRn is the one being recommended, and the Quest series is on its official compatibility list. ALVR, whose name came up for a long time, reportedly does not work on SteamVR 2.16.7 or later, and no longer looks like the first choice. If you’re on an NVIDIA card, there’s a caveat that optimisation on the recommended WiVRn side has not caught up. User posts line up with this too: two reports on the Quest 2 — one saying 90fps held steady on an AMD card, another saying buttons responded too slowly to play on an NVIDIA card. I have not tried either. If the card in your machine is NVIDIA, it seems worth bracing for that.

Valve’s Steam Frame looks like an attempt to fold up this inconvenience from a different direction. The headset itself is a PC running SteamOS, and the Steam Deck and Steam Machine are officially named as streaming sources. Neither the release date nor the price has been announced yet.

For anyone who chose Linux for local AI, the trouble on the VR side tends to show up in the shape of “the device is visible, but nothing is talking to it" — the same shape as an add-in GPU that gets recognised but never gets a driver loaded. Checking, one thing at a time, how far things actually run on the PC in front of you — that seems to be the same work, whether it’s AI or VR.

Here’s the article on the PC build that was the starting point for all of this.

Sources I Checked

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