OS X / Linux drivers

[Christopher Reay]

why can’t the foss team reverse engineer the existing windows driver or perhaps work with wine?

I hear there are significant complexities I mapping the co-ordinate systems, but this is a “solve once”problem.

[Christopher Reay]

lol. I’ve been looking up reversed engineering of drivers.

looks somewhat completely impossible to reverse engineer such a complex driver. maybe we could use a deep learning tool for it. lol

https://www.linuxvoice.com/drive-it-yourself-usb-car-6/

[wes]

And yet another +1/vote for linux support \o/ I’m a developper and pointing-assist on linux would be a huge productivity enhancement for me. Thanks.

I am not a gamer, I would like to track and log my attention at all times. this will be huge for my quantified self.
I would like to detect and prevent distractions, like looking at the suggestions while the video is playing on YouTube.com.

[Grant [Tobii]]

Hi @wess, thanks for your interest. If you are intending on using your eye tracker for gathering user data and statistics (as it seems you do) then please bear in mind this requires the purchase of a special SDK licence.

Incidentally, there is also the option of purchasing a licence to use the Tobii Pro SDK in conjunction with your eye tracking on Linux, although these bindings are intended for analysis not interaction purposes.

For the time being, we do not offer a Linux solution out of the box, but hopefully soon. Thanks.

[Nik Burnt]

We don’t want to use user data for commerce, but we want to controll our macs/*nix workstation using Tobii

[Grant [Tobii]]

Hi @nikburnt, whilst for the time being Linux is not available for public domain, if you are interested we can arrange to provide you an early alpha of the Tobii Core SDK for Mac. Please PM me for further details, thanks.

[Jim Cheetham]

Another +1 … while my 4C will be used with a Windows machine for gaming, for development and operations I live in a multiple-monitor Linux world, and something as simple as a mouse pointer moving to the gaze position on demand (double-blink? 🙂 ) would be outstandingly good.

Whether this is integrated as a HID + control panel or simply presented as an event stream that needs a specialist receiver program isn’t too important, it’s easy to remap co-ordinates and introduce new inputs events to X, even just using xdotool(1).

Of course, there’s a presumption that the device is doing the processing onboard; if instead it’s offloading much of this to the drivers then the fuller SDK may be needed …

[Grant [Tobii]]

Hi @jimcheetham, thanks for your feedback. We are working hard on creating a stable Linux driver and SDK for the Tobii Tech Range of eye tracker and we appreciate your patience.

There is a possibility of allowing early alpha testing release if you are happy to submit to sign an NDA and subject to Tobii approval for your intended project.

That being the case, you can PM me for further details.

[Jim Cheetham]

Thanks for the opportunity; I won’t take you up on it though. I’m not usually involved in low-level code for devices on Linux, I tend to wait for stable APIs to be made available through user-space tools. Sounds like you’re a long way away from that stage yet.

But I hope that you do indeed see that as an end-goal; having a proprietary dev kit/driver/library under NDA means that it’s more difficult to write free software, you need to be happy to expose an API that can be described and used without formal agreements to be useful. Ideally the whole driver down to the hardware interface is open sourced, but that’s unlikely to happen in your case as I assume you’re doing most of the actual calculation in software rather than in the hardware. So the end-user would expect to install proprietary software to go with the hardware, but they will usually still want to use free/open software applications to interact with it … hence a user-space API of some sort.

Good luck!

[Grant [Tobii]]

Hi @jimcheetham, okay fair enough I understand your concerns. Indeed Tobii is aiming to get the Linux flavor of the Core SDK available to the public once we are fully satisfied with stability and operability.. to this end, we do appreciate user feedback from early alphas. If you happen to change your mind, please feel free to get in touch once again.

[Max]

Its really great to hear that support for linux is underway! 🙂

[Grant [Tobii]]

Thanks @maxmuster, yes it’s definitely under development.. thanks so much for your patience at this time whilst we work to develop the best solution for everyone.

[Michael Maurus]

Hi all,

what’s the current state concerning Linux drivers? Especially for the Vive integrated Eyetracker?
The getting started guide (https://developer.tobii.com/vr/getting-started/devices/htc-vive-dev-kit/introduction/) says that I should download and install the driver, which is only an .exe file. Is it available for linux/Ubuntu as well?

Cheers, Michael

[Grant [Tobii]]

Hi @mmaurus and thanks for your query. Linux support is available for certain eye tracking models such as the Tobii 4C for which an early alpha is already released, however, I am afraid that for the time being the XR SDK on which the Vive EyeTracker is based is Windows only.

If however, you have any other Tobii eye trackers, please let us know and we can try and find the best solution for your needs. Best Wishes.

[Daniel Vitor do Nascimento Martins]

Hi, i’m interested in what’s the current state concerning Linux drivers for Tobii EyeX Controller? Where, exacly, can I download the drivers for it?

[Author]

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