VR on NixOS work

After more than a year without Windows and so Desktop VR, finally VR on NixOS!

Installation

Here the main resources for VR on NixOS and for Linux:

• VR - NixOS Wiki
• Home | Linux VR Adventures Wiki

I also made an article on the matter.

Software

Here some parts of my configuration.nix:

{ config, pkgs, ... }:

{
  services.wivrn = {
    enable = true;
    openFirewall = true;
    defaultRuntime = true;
  };
  
  environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
    monado-vulkan-layers
    opencomposite
  ];
  
  system.stateVersion = "25.05";
}

Before going throughout configuration with the VR applications, let’s break down the nix file:

• WiVRn: Wireless Virtual Reality streaming for Linux, it help by giving a GUI for using Monado, the XR (not VR) runtime.
• Vulkan Layers for Monado (monado-vulkan-layers): Make Vulkan work with Monado. It is used to make Valve’s Proton work Monado, since Proton used Vulkan.
• OpenComposite: Reimplementation of Valve’s OpenVR, translating calls to OpenXR. So convert VR to XR to be used by Monado and thus WiVRn.

Configuration files

Please replace username by your user (echo $USER in the terminal to get it).

/home/username/.config/openvr/openvrpaths.vrpath

{
	"config" : 
	[
		"/home/username/.local/share/Steam/config"
	],
	"external_drivers" : null,
	"jsonid" : "vrpathreg",
	"log" : 
	[
		"/home/username/.local/share/Steam/logs"
	],
	"runtime" : 
	[
		"/run/current-system/sw/lib/opencomposite"
	],
	"version" : 1
}

/home/username/.config/openxr/1/openxr_wivrn.json

{
    "file_format_version": "1.0.0",
    "runtime": {
        "name": "Monado",
        "library_path": "/run/current-system/sw/lib/wivrn/libopenxr_wivrn.so",
        "MND_libmonado_path": "/run/current-system/sw/lib/wivrn/libmonado_wivrn.so"
    }
}