getting an HTC Vive working on Linux

the HTC Vive VR headset is almost a decade old at this point, but i still have one and bothered to try using it again recently. everything mostly worked fine, but there were a few hiccups along the way. hopefully these notes will get picked up by a search engine or whatever to help someone in the future :3

don't bother with playing games through SteamVR. it sucks, always has sucked, and probably will continue to suck forever. you will need it installed and to do the initial setup in SteamVR, but that's all you need it for. instead, you'll want to use Envision to handle things.

if the headset's display refuses to show up at all, and the output instead shows up on your monitor, plug the HDMI directly into your graphics card instead of into the link box. for some reason, the link box breaks DRM leasing.

sometimes, the controllers just don't want to show up in Envision. opening and closing SteamVR fixes this? i'm not sure why.