Cant find appimage

[AvenIsHere]

Description

I cannot find the AppImage for ALVR. The wiki says that if you are on Arch Linux and dont have the flatpak version of Steam, you need to use the AppImage, however i cant find it.

General Troubleshooting

• I carefully followed the instructions in the README and successfully completed the setup wizard
• I read the ALVR Wikis here and here

Environment

Hardware

Note: for Linux, an upload to the hw-probe database is preferred: hw-probe -all -upload

CPU: N/A

GPU: N/A

GPU Driver Version: N/A

Audio: N/A

Installation

ALVR Version: N/A

ALVR Settings File: N/A

SteamVR Version: N/A

Install Type: N/A

• Packaged (exe, deb, rpm, etc)
• Portable (zip)
• Source

OS Name and Version (winver on Windows or grep PRETTY_NAME /etc/os-release on most Linux distributions):

[kruemmelbande]

I think appimages for alvr are deprecated now. On arch, just install alvr from the aur.

[infidelus]

Yes, there was a pull request to remove the Appimage unfortunately and it's not clear (to me at least) how you're supposed to use the Flatpak, and the portable version crashes constantly as it wants additional dependencies installed for Linux.

[Vixea]

For flatpak you need to use flatpak steam.
Anyways what's your distro and what dependencies are you missing?

[infidelus]

I was just coming back to post that you also need to use the Flatpak version of Steam, which I don't particularly want. It seems (to me) that removing the Appimage option just means a lot more work getting ALVR setup up as I have no real interest in using Flatpak. Appimage was simple; you downloaded a file and marked it as executable. That was it. Flatpak requires advanced knowledge and a bunch of extra steps.

Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon btw. I can't remember offhand what the dependencies were and am not currently in a position to check.

[AvenIsHere]

Yea sadly I can’t use the flatpak, since I use SteamOS, which comes with steam built in.

[AvenIsHere]

And SteamOS certainly makes it very difficult to use the AUR

[Vixea]

Or you could just install the dependencies

[infidelus]

I honestly don't understand why the Appimage was removed. It was a perfectly good solution and did not require anyone to jump through hoops to get ALVR working. Add to that that the instructions for building from source don't work/are outdated (which I believe I mentioned some time ago in the Discussion section), and I'm not particularly interested in installing extra dependencies that may or may not work when a single Appimage file was a perfect solution for me.

I wasn't intending this to be an argument on the pros and cons of the various options, just pointing out that removing the Appimage has hindered Linux users (@AvenIsHere for instance) who were relying on ALVR as the solution to PCVR. While I do have a few PCVR games, most of mine are Quest native so it has less of an effect on me. Obviously I'd like them all to work but if the developers deem that Appimages are not the future then I guess I just won't play PCVR until another solution is found.

[AvenIsHere]

Or you could just install the dependencies

I believe this would be wiped with every SteamOS update, since SteamOS is immutable. (Correct me if I’m wrong)

[Vixea]

That doesn't sound correct but i don't know. I don't use immutable distros and it's not like you have to make it mutable for alvr to work(btw)

[AnOpenSauceDev]

I mean, you could just use an older version of ALVR with the appimage, and aren't the libraries bundled now?

I believe this would be wiped with every SteamOS update, since SteamOS is immutable. (Correct me if I’m wrong)

It is in fact immutable, but you can revert that by running sudo steamos-readonly disable, but do be careful if you choose that route, as you can easily break SteamOS if you don't know what you're doing.

Honestly, if you're trying to use ALVR on the Steam Deck, it's not going to be a fun experience anyways. The GPU is not really capable of driving what in some cases is a 4K+ screen.

[kruemmelbande]

Last time i tried to use the aur on steamos it failed to compile at all. It seems to happen with lots and lots of things in the aur so i really think its steamos specific. Even just compiling random projects not from the aur seems to just fail all the time on steamos

[AvenIsHere]

I mean, you could just use an older version of ALVR with the appimage, and aren't the libraries bundled now?

I believe this would be wiped with every SteamOS update, since SteamOS is immutable. (Correct me if I’m wrong)

It is in fact immutable, but you can revert that by running sudo steamos-readonly disable, but do be careful if you choose that route, as you can easily break SteamOS if you don't know what you're doing.

Honestly, if you're trying to use ALVR on the Steam Deck, it's not going to be a fun experience anyways. The GPU is not really capable of driving what in some cases is a 4K+ screen.

It may not run well to most people’s standards, but it would be better than my current PC, which is really poor when it comes to VR; like to the point that most would consider it unplayable.
Unless they bring back the appimage, I’m probably gonna stick with an old version (like you suggested), cuz yea using the other methods sound like a nightmare on the Steam Deck lol

[infidelus]

Same unfortunately, though my PC is actually of a reasonable spec. If Appimages are permanently gone I'll just keep using an old version for the games that do actually work and then just will have to hope Valve actually get Steam Link working on Linux.

[Vixea]

Could someone please do this? #2056 (comment)
It might actually resolve your issues instead of what you're currently doing