It was publicly released in 2013 and you can enable it with -vr in args IIRC. Not sure if it would work with modern VR hardware since steamvr wasn't a thing back then.
Both can be true considering they are very different projects and hardware. SteamVR on linux even with a steam index has many issues. I am sure however that the linux support of the frame will be much better considering it also releases alongside there own Linux PC.
I don’t know about the beta, but there’s an excellent HL2 VR conversion mod you can play today. It feels just right and got me to play HL2 again after all these years.
It’s something I keep meaning to play. My wife got a decent headset for free through work about three or four years ago, and after we both played a collective 15 minutes of Beat Saber it’s been gathering dust on the top shelf of a closet ever since. We used to play tons of DDR and Wii Sports so we like moving-around games but the thing just didn’t interest either of us, at all.
Alyx just hasn’t been quite enough motivation for me to take on the project of figuring out how to get it hooked up and working, though I did at one point do the few minutes of googling to confirm it might work (I think it’s one of those Facebook ones, and as I recall it is supposed to work for Alyx but I’ll need some cable or other). Especially since it’s a fairly short side-story, it’s just not enough juice to be worth the squeeze.
The conclusion of the series (until it’s not the conclusion any more—yeah, I know how franchises work, lol) though? That’d do it.
If I already had it out and used it regularly I’m sure I’d have played Alyx by now, but with that being the only thing I have any interest in doing with it, just not enough to get me to set the thing up for that alone.
I'd also love to play Portal, actually. They say it makes you sick, but to my knowledge I'm immune from VR motion sickness, so worth a try...