There’s a weird issue with VR on Linux where it doesn’t use the right GPU profile for some reason. A pretty easy workaround for that is to use CoreCTRL to manually set the GPU profile to high.

It should just work. You install SteamVR through Steam, start it and it should detect the headset.

Here are a few ideas on what could have gone wrong:

• Steam is installed as a flatpak
  • Doesn’t work out of the box but I think it’s also in this thread where I asked how to make that work
• You use GNOME
  • Currently, VR works on KDE in X11 and Wayland but in GNOME only in X11. GNOME 47 (The next update, some people might already have it depending on the distro) adds support for VR in Wayland tho

These are the 2 things I could think of off the the top of my head. If you know what exactly didn’t work I might be able to help you.

Edit: Forgot to add, you also need to install CoreCTRL and use it to set the GPU to high, otherwise performance is gonna be shit.