Pitool Github and Linux

PimaxVR Software Discussion
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Hi all,

it’s been a while and my 5k+ and 8kx are sadly collecting dust.
I remember this “PI Day” announcement where Pimax said, they would open-source Pitool (which I thought was the best news they ever had to that point). Yet, now (years later) I somehow cannot find any source code. There is a Pitool repository on Github, but that is untouched for two years. Where is that source?

Due to this open-source nature, I was hoping that Pimax headsets would run with SteamVR on Linux in the meantime, but again, I cannot find anything regarding that.

So, what is the progress on open-source and Linux? I would really like to test the eye-tracking module, which is still in its packaging…

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Pimax only haphazardly released a jumbled mess source as you said 2 years ago. I believe it was only the interface and not the actual driver.

They as you can see have not done anything with it since(at least not publicly).

The ET @guppyexpress has created a firmware that makes the ET work well.

I know @mirage335 was looking into getting pimax working on Linux but imagine the progress has been very slow due to barriers.

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That is sad to hear. It really looked like it had potential. Well, bulk order of Valve Index then it is… :frowning:

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I have been curious if it could be doable maybe using Wine.

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No, it’s slow because software developers are still scarce today. All we need is some code to turn on the displays - the USB packet captures are already on the issue tracker for someone who wants to work on this. Maybe some day I will get to it myself. Or maybe someone can toss some thousands of dollars in the direction of OpenHMD devs so they can presumably quit their day jobs. Otherwise, the OpenHMD devs seem to be slowly gaining interest in Pimax headsets.

No, definitely NOT the kind of thing WINE works with. No compatibility layers exist for such things at all like PiTool.

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You may want to look into the 4k as a dev cracked that to work with a RaspberryPi to use for a visually impaired project.

Maybe but Amd gpu passthrough works. Id pimax had a proper sdk they could likely use it like was used on Oculus at one time to fill in blanks of a linux driver.

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GPU passthrough to virtualization may be usable. But then someone could also just use MSW as a host OS and put the Linux VM in a guest, as I am doing. The point is to get the proprietary, heavyweight, MSW OS out of the workflow, with all of its very serious inconveniences, deficiencies, issues.

Not least, MSW does not even have a decent file manager. Last time I tried KDE Dolphin file manager for Windows, all of the versions were either unstable or did not open ‘lnk’ shortcut files correctly. On top of that, PowerShell is used as the terminal, not Cygwin. Working with symlinks on MSW is extremely dangerous.

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This could be promising. The 12k may help as it will likely have some kind of Android flavor fir it’s Standalone mode.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Wine-Wineusb-Merged

You may want to checkout Files a Windows File manager alternative.

A friend recommended it due to issues/flaws with Windows.

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There is a lot more to PiTool than just GPUUSB. Stuff deep in the NVIDIA/AMD drivers adds DisplayPort displays without the MSW graphical desktop using them, which is all very totally different than any Linux graphical desktop interface (eg. Wayland, X11, etc), for all of sufficient software developers are not at all available to create compatibility layers for within the next ten years at least.

And all that, when at the end of the day, the whole point of getting Linux support is to have lighter weight, more versatile, support, than PiTool/MSW.

Comparatively, OpenHMD/Linux, natively by writing new software from the packet captures, is absolutely the easier, and better, path.

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