Steam Installation

SteamVR for Linux cannot run properly within the unsupported Steam Snap or Steam Flatpak packages as they break both Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) leasing and asynchronous reprojection. The native distribution package should be used instead.

If using Ubuntu, ensure you have the official Steam .deb package installed, which is available from the Downloads page on the Steam website.

Graphics Drivers

You should ensure your system and graphics drivers are fully up-to-date to have the best experience with SteamVR.

NVIDIA users will need to use the proprietary NVIDIA driver as the open-source Mesa Nouveau driver currently does not support Vulkan. NVIDIA drivers should be version 525 or higher.

AMD/Intel users will need to use the open-source Mesa drivers with at least version 22.0.

The AMDVLK and the AMDGPU-Pro proprietary drivers are not supported and will not work.
If either of these drivers are installed (even if not used), SteamVR may function incorrectly. You must remove these drivers from your system before using SteamVR.

Desktop Environment support

SteamVR for Linux requires DRM leasing to function. DRM leasing is the process which allows SteamVR to take control of your VR headset's display in order to present low-latency VR content.

Unfortunately not all Wayland compositors support DRM leasing. It is not possible for SteamVR to function without leasing the display. If your window manager does not support DRM leasing you will need to either use X11 or a compatible Wayland compositor to run SteamVR.

Some compatible window managers/compositors include:

• All X11 Window Managers and Compositors
  
• KDE Plasma Wayland
  
• Most wlroots based compositors:
  
  • Sway
    
  • LabWC
    
  • Hyprland

Notably, Gnome Wayland, the default desktop environment for Ubuntu, is not supported as it does not support DRM leasing. Users using Gnome Wayland will need to switch to an alternative window manager/compositor in order to use SteamVR.

Workarounds for Ubuntu

You can use the Gnome X11 session to make SteamVR work on Ubuntu. You can select the desktop environment at the login screen by clicking the cog icon in the bottom-right of the display once selecting your user. Make sure the option “Ubuntu” is selected, not “Ubuntu on Wayland”.

You can also use KDE Plasma instead of Gnome to use SteamVR on Ubuntu. To install KDE Plasma on Ubuntu, use the following command:
sudo apt install kde-plasma-desktop plasma-workspace-wayland
Then, select either “Plasma (X11)” or “Plasma (Wayland)” with the cog icon on the login screen.

In general, we recommend using Plasma Wayland on an Arch-based distribution to have access to the latest graphics drivers and other components needed for the best experience.