Stepping Towards Better VR Headset Support On Wayland

Sway and WLROOTS creator Drew DeVault on top of his several open-source projects has also been working on improving the VR infrastructure support on Wayland as part of contract work for Status.im. The secure communication company is looking to build a Wayland-driven VR workspace but for that the VR headset support on Wayland needs to be improved.

One of the areas DeVault has been focusing on improving/implementing has been around DRM leasing support on Wayland, similar to the DRM leasing work done by Keith Packard a few years back when initially plumbing better VR head-mounted display support on the X.Org side for Valve. Drew recently proposed a new Vulkan extension for acquiring a Wayland display, similar to the existing Xlib display extension.

Besides that Vulkan extension he's also been working on the appropriate DRM leasing protocol extension for Wayland, working on the driver-side support within Mesa, and also getting the Vulkan code running within the likes of WLROOTS and Sway. He also has plans for extending the support through to XWayland.

Those interested in learning more about the prospects for the eventual better VR headset support on Wayland can find out about Drew's current work on his blog.