Linux

[danshewan]

So what I would like to know is if any people here have succesfully used Linux without any hassle, as I am thinking dual-booting Vista and Ubuntu on my next machine.

If you've never used the command line, don't expect using or installing Linux to be completely 'hassle free', but it's not as difficult as some might have you believe. However, I'm wondering for what purpose you're looking at using Linux in the first place?

I bought Linux Format this month, and it put me off somewhat, to be honest. It may just be that the magazine is written by programming orientated people, but it seems to me that at some point I may have to open a command line tool and actually code stuff to get it to work.

One of the greatest strengths of Linux is in the flexibility of using the command line, and whilst it might be a little intimidating at first, stripping away the pretty shiny GUI of other OS's is actually a far more efficient way to work.

My first experience of using Linux was the Debian distribution, and aside from debating which window manager to opt for (I ended up going for KDE), it was a positive experience overall with very few problems. Of course, the extent of your computing knowledge will be a factor, and some find it easier than others to adapt to command line operations.

As for places to get help with installation and general use, try these two to get started:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/

[earlyworm]

I recently installed Kubuntu on my laptop to dual boot with Vista. It didn't recognise my wireless adapter in live-CD (booting off CD) but it did recognise it sure enough once installed. It also recognises my external drives. Provided your reasonably adept at using a computer then you shouldn't have too much difficultly installing linux. Most have a GUI to help with the setup. Do a backup of your system before you install it through.

Navigating the commandline isn't that difficult. Once you get use to it you'll find it much easier to use than the windows-explorer.

[Kai01W]

For users new to linux I would definitely recommend Ubuntu. I think it is the most user friendly distro. I think the only point where the installation process could be improved is the partitioning. Not that there is anything wrong with it but you might want to read a bit more about it before you do your manual setup.


-k

[blenderhead]

Yeah I will definitely be going through Ubuntu. With the DVD that came with the magazine, apparently I can try Linux without installing it. I tried restarting and then shutting down my system with the disc in the drive, but it didn't boot it up. The magazine said something about going into the BIOS at startup to do this. Is this risky, and how is it done anyway?

[noizFACTORY]

I have just started using Centos at work. The i.t. guys set it up so I wouldn't know much about installation woes. I have never used a Linux o.s. before but navigating through centos wasn't that hard. It loads up quite fast too. Though I had heard Linux isn't much of a memory hog, it still seems to be using around 1 gig easily.

I'm only getting to know the very basic bash and tcsh commands to get work done. One thing advised by my i.t. guy and something I also read over the internet is to avoid using your Linux o.s. in the admin mode, i.e. do not give root access to any user, including yourself, to avoid accidentally messing up your system. I guess that would be true for a novice.

Also, liked the fact that I could log out of a session and then come back to find it intact. However, the system does freeze up on me occassionally.

[Apoclypse]

Yeah I will definitely be going through Ubuntu. With the DVD that came with the magazine, apparently I can try Linux without installing it. I tried restarting and then shutting down my system with the disc in the drive, but it didn't boot it up. The magazine said something about going into the BIOS at startup to do this. Is this risky, and how is it done anyway?

Well the cool thing about Ubuntu is that with the current versions you no longer have to partition your system. If you have access to a fairly decent network go to Ubuntu's site and download the desktop version of the cd (or you can order it for free) and burn it to a disc. Once burned all you have to do is pop it into a windows install and it will autorun and install Ubuntu for you inside you windows partition so you don't have to deal with the risks of partitioning at all. It will even add Ubuntu to Windows own bootloader, which is cool.

Linux Format is an okay magazine, but I stopped gettign them when I got a decent internet connection. They are usually behind in releases and the magazine itself is rather expensive for very little content you couldn't fins on some of the Linux dedicated sites. It was great though and my first install of Fedora Core was from a Linux Format DVD.

[Apoclypse]

I'm only getting to know the very basic bash and tcsh commands to get work done. One thing advised by my i.t. guy and something I also read over the internet is to avoid using your Linux o.s. in the admin mode, i.e. do not give root access to any user, including yourself, to avoid accidentally messing up your system. I guess that would be true for a novice.


This is an important point to remember. Most Linux distros usually never set a user up as admin and use a separate account for users and one for admin work. Ubuntu uses something called a sudoers list. Basically what this means is that you still use your own username and password to escalate rights when needed (if you are installing software, changing system settings, updating, etc). If you use OSX, its a very similar concept. Ubuntu doesn't even let you log in as admin by default, but its pretty easy to enable the account, though uncessary for the most part. Luckily escalation in Linux isn't as annoying as Vista's UAC. In Ubuntu it will darken the desktop a bit and pop up a dialogue asking for your username and password, then you have a token system where you can do a set amount of admin work without having to re-enter your password everytime. It usually lasts for a set amount of time (not sure what that is) and then reverts back when their is no admin work being done, so that you are not hit with a barrage of prompts asking you for your ussername and password.

[Womball]

Oh it will install on a windows partition? That's news to me, so you can dual boot from that I assume. I haven't used Linux in 5 years, is the installation of software any easier? I often had to use a command line, and it didn't always install.

[Boone]

I was wondering about linux too. I'm considering a new PC/Laptop for Blender this year, but not sure if Linux is in 64-bit flavour. Another question is whether it uses less ram than either XP or Vista...

Also - just for the sake of it - has anyone actually run Blender on a PS3 with Linux installed? :D

[TAVO]

You can be sure that GNU/Linux will eat all your RAM memory when posible, and as far as i know GNU/Linux was the first OS with 64bits support, so there will be no problem in find one.

Blender is widly used in GNU/Linux, check out the forums for feedback and i think there is a 64bits version as well.

[sausages]

I recently switched to using Linux, 64-bit Ubuntu more specifically, and I like it a lot. I was in the market for a new computer and decided what the heck I will get it with no OS and throw Linux on it. I had only previously used MacOS, so I never did any terminal stuff, but when I had to do anything from the terminal it was mostly just copying commands from a forum, pretty easy.
I am using wireless right now. At first I had Ubuntu 8.04 and it worked poorly, and I upgraded to 8.10 and it worked a little better. I messed around with some other flavors of linux, but decided I liked Ubuntu, so I backed up my work and installed 8.10 from the downloaded CD (wiping my HD) and now my wireless is working nicely.
I don't recommend doing what I did in terms of diving right in, unless you are adventurous, patient, and/or crazy, but Ubuntu in a pretty nice OS, and ATM I can't imagine using anything else ever again.

[noizFACTORY]

This is an important point to remember. Most Linux distros usually never set a user up as admin and use a separate account for users and one for admin work. Ubuntu uses something called a sudoers list.

Yeah, I think there's a su/sudo command that one can use in konsole to access admin functionalities.
At home, I'm getting to know the cygwin tools. I like the way it provides a linux konsole environment. I'm using it to get familiar with some basic linux shell commands without having to install one. I found some pages with mappings of basic commands in various OSes.

http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/unix_for_dos_users.html

http://www.ss64.com/bash/index.html

This is a bit o.t. but can anyone help me run .mak files on Linux? If I type "make example.mak" at the konsole (without the quotes) it doesn't execute the file. However, if I rename example.mak to makefile and run it at the console, it works. What exactly is this make utility and how do I make the .mak file work (pardon the pun)?

[mtartist]

Yeah I will definitely be going through Ubuntu. With the DVD that came with the magazine, apparently I can try Linux without installing it. I tried restarting and then shutting down my system with the disc in the drive, but it didn't boot it up. The magazine said something about going into the BIOS at startup to do this. Is this risky, and how is it done anyway?

What you have to do is to tell your PC to attempt to boot from the cdrom first. If you don't do that, it will boot from the hard disk and you will end up in windows. Changing the boot order is not risky. Some systems also have the possibility to press a function key (ex. F8) while starting the system (but before windows starts loading) and they will pop up a menu asking you from which device you want to boot. At that point choose cdrom and you will boot from the cd.

Regarding the wireless stuff, if you know what hardware you've got (brand, model) you could search in the ubuntu forums. If there's a problem you can be pretty sure that someone before you bumped into it.

[rendermaniac]

The Xubuntu distribution is quite nice http://www.xubuntu.org/ as it uses Xforce. This is much simpler than KDE or GNOME for the desktop. Ubuntu is definitely the nicest Linux distribution to run at home.

One thing to watch is that a lot of 3d software has only been tested with Red Hat Fedora Core or Red Hat Enterprise Linux (CentOS http://www.centos.org/ is Red Hat Enterprise Linux for free with Redhat logos stripped out). Unfortunately there are enough differences for this to matter.

Boone - I don't think Linux on a PS3 uses the Cell hardware accelleration (I could be wrong) so you wouldn't get a very good 3d machine from one.

Simon

[DaJuice]

Ubuntu is definitely the nicest Linux distribution to run at home.

Ack, I really can't agree with that... :argh:
I don't want to hazard a distro war, but I see everyone recommending Ubuntu, and to someone new to Linux it might look like it's head and shoulders above every other desktop distro. I really don't think that's the case. For what it's worth, I think PCLOS is an easier, more polished, and better thought out product than Ubuntu. I'll leave it at that, just wanted to say that the nod to Ubuntu is definitly not unanimous.

[dbisme]

I was wondering about linux too. I'm considering a new PC/Laptop for Blender this year, but not sure if Linux is in 64-bit flavour.

Most if not all major Linux distributions-Ubuntu, Redhat, Debian, Mandriva, Suse,etc,etc. have a 64 bit version. Linux has had 64 bit versions for years now.

[Gentle Fury]

http://refit.sourceforge.net/

Is a great tool for triple booting a Mac Pro.

There are no true graphics or proc drivers for PS3 yet so you can use it, but its pretty slow, only recognizes 2 cores.

[arquebus]

I strongly recommend Elive Linux http://www.elivecd.org/ which is based on Debian and its repos. Its extremely fast, unlike Ubuntu where you have to wait 2 or 3 seconds for just browsers and text editors to open up. Only the beta version available for immediate download.

[DVmaker]

Thank goodness for the choice of an OS distro.

[niva]

If you're planning to run Maya in linux it runs well on suse and fedora. You can get it to run under any linux distro but you might have to tinker with it.

Linux is meant to be run on 64 bit mode, the only reason you should run 32 bit is if you're running on an old machine.

Ubuntu is great for this reason: http://ubuntuforums.org/

If you're buying a machine with the intent of running linux on it check the laptop model and linux - wireless drivers and etc. A number of Asus laptops apparently come with an Atheros wireless chip which has big problems under linux still. I've not experienced this myself but it pays to search a bit before you buy.


Someone above reported that they weren't able to boot into Ubuntu's live cd properly. I've experienced this in the past with Ubuntu and recently with suse and fedora. The live cd begins to boot then just hangs.

[blenderhead]

http://refit.sourceforge.net/

Is a great tool for triple booting a Mac Pro.

There are no true graphics or proc drivers for PS3 yet so you can use it, but its pretty slow, only recognizes 2 cores.

That seems like a wasted oppurtunity...someone should code cell/6 core support...

If there was 6 core and true graphics support, could someone theoretically play something like Crysis through Wine on their PS3?

(Stupid question, I know, but worth asking! :D)

[dbisme]

...the only reason you should run 32 bit is if you're running on an old machine.


Or if some of your hardware has proprietary drivers that only work in 32 bit. I'm using Kubuntu right now. But Epson only puts out 32 bit drivers for my scanner, which don't work on a 64 bit Linux.

[twedzel]

I use Windows at home and Linux at work. I hate working with Linux, everything is a huge hassle in Linux. Don't get me wrong, its a computer geeks paradise. If you love being a techno geek then you'll love linux. If you are an artist who just wants to work, then it's probably not for you.

[Apoclypse]

Boone - I don't think Linux on a PS3 uses the Cell hardware accelleration (I could be wrong) so you wouldn't get a very good 3d machine from one.

Simon

It doesn't use the Nvidia hardware acceleration, but the Cell processor itself can be used as a GPU. However I have yet to here or see anyone use it in that way since its supposed to be a pain to program for. The real power of the Cell processor probably will never be tapped until several years down the line when hobbyiest start to get into it.

[DaJuice]

That's a fair point. It's easy to forget how frustrating the initial learning curve can be when you're learning a complex new software, be it an OS or 3d app. A huge community is a big plus.

[Kai01W]

I use Windows at home and Linux at work. I hate working with Linux, everything is a huge hassle in Linux. Don't get me wrong, its a computer geeks paradise. If you love being a techno geek then you'll love linux. If you are an artist who just wants to work, then it's probably not for you.

...which generalised like that is of course BS. First of all the user experience depends largely on which distro is used and there are quite a few of them out there. While I agree that most distros are overall still not quite as userfriendly as windows, to say that everything in Linux is a huge hassle is simply wrong. There are even quite alot of things which are even easier. Plus as an "artist who just wants to work" in many cases I could not care less which operating system I use. Many "artists" in this industry just fire up their application and thats it. There are admins and pipeline people to take care of the rest. Plus Linux has decent file-managers to use for browsing ones stuff.

-k

[Apoclypse]

Ack, I really can't agree with that... :argh:
I don't want to hazard a distro war, but I see everyone recommending Ubuntu, and to someone new to Linux it might look like it's head and shoulders above every other desktop distro. I really don't think that's the case. For what it's worth, I think PCLOS is an easier, more polished, and better thought out product than Ubuntu. I'll leave it at that, just wanted to say that the nod to Ubuntu is definitly not unanimous.

I agree (in that Ubuntu is not always the best option) but in this case the community is what really sets Ubuntu apart from other distros. There is certainly better polished better looking distros out there but Ubuntu's large commuity and newby friendly forum are what makes the distro popular. For the most part searching an issue in Google will usually pull up the Ubuntuforums first, you can search for almost any issue in the ubuntuforums and get at least an aknowldgement of your issue as somone probably has run into it before. I've used many distros and in mny cases I've found Ubuntu to be inferior in certain aspects but the community (which I have seen grow since the beginning) is the real draw of Ubuntu. Its like Windows, the more people that use it the higher the probabilty of you finding a solution to an obscure issue you are having.

So while other distros may be better, I alwasy recommend Ubuntu for people who are new to Linux because of the amount of information available. Also there acertain things that Ubuntu does right that I have yet to see other distros tackle in a meaninful way.

[Gentle Fury]

That seems like a wasted oppurtunity...someone should code cell/6 core support...

If there was 6 core and true graphics support, could someone theoretically play something like Crysis through Wine on their PS3?

(Stupid question, I know, but worth asking! :D)

Seems like that would be possible...but sony won't release drivers for linux...for obvious reasons :)

[twedzel]

...which generalised like that is of course BS. First of all the user experience depends largely on which distro is used and there are quite a few of them out there. While I agree that most distros are overall still not quite as userfriendly as windows, to say that everything in Linux is a huge hassle is simply wrong.

Which is exactly my point... Having to know all the work arounds and distros and linux talk is just more stuff in the way of getting programs/networks to simply work for me. If you as an artist are willing to invest the time and effort into learning all that, then have at it. It's just not my cup of tea for personal work.

[salmonmoose]

Ubuntu is good - but it's not brilliant, it's a great starting point but does some things really strangely.

That said - for joe-average, who only wants to use out of the box applications, you can't beat it.

Personally I run a mix of Ubuntu on my laptop, Xubuntu on my Eeebox, Eeebuntu on my Eeepc, and OpenSuSE/XP on my workstation.

I've found suse to be far more complete than ubuntu variations, but a bit more painful to administer. It's far more comfortable to develop under.

[DVmaker]

Where did you guys learn linux? From just tinkering around or were you formally trained?

[sausages]

I am not really a technical person at all, I am more of an oil painter than digital painter, and have just recently started to do some 3D because creating stop-motion sets/armatures is just too expensive and takes up so much space. My experience with Ubuntu has been a learning experience, but really after a bit it becomes familiar and is really not all typing code and hacking stuff, its just another GUI to run programs on. Any OS will have a learning curve, once you accept that isn't windows or macOS you will be comfortable with it in under a week.

[olson]

Where did you guys learn linux? From just tinkering around or were you formally trained?

I've picked it up from just tinkering mostly. Tons of stuff is on the internet and in the documentation for each distribution. Don't worry about the terminal, its pretty easy to pickup and has very good documentation for commands (using man or just help options).

For the original poster I would recommend that everyone should try Linux at least once. Its true that the terminal does get used a lot. If you don't want to use it there are usually GUI versions of whatever but if you give it a chance you'll be hooked. I'm not a programmer and have no formal training but I picked up the terminal very quickly and use it all the time. Its great for installing software quickly or backing up files, all kinds of stuff. There's lots of opinions about what distribution to use but I would just suggest something mainstream and not too obscure so you can easily find help and documentation. Something like Ubuntu, Suse, Fedora, or maybe Debian.

Already mentioned but good to repeat is that Linux is not Windows. Things are done differently and for different reasons. It won't play all of your favorite computer games and it wont work with DRM based services for music and movies. However it does many other tasks better than Windows which you'll discover based on how you use the system. Good luck!

[dbisme]

Already mentioned but good to repeat is that Linux is not Windows. Things are done differently and for different reasons. It won't play all of your favorite computer games and it wont work with DRM based services for music and movies. However it does many other tasks better than Windows which you'll discover based on how you use the system. Good luck!

People forget how long it took to learn all the ins and outs that they know about Windows.

Same thing with Linux. It's like learning another language. English and French both have their purposes. If you are learning French, you need to think in French, not translate from English all the time.

[niva]

We use linux at my job, after seeing the recent improvements in Fedora I decided to try linux at home. After playing with 5 or 6 different distros I've pretty much settled on Ubuntu mostly because of the excellent forums. As someone above said Ubuntu is not the best, I sank down to it because every time I had a problem and resorted to googling I found the answers I needed on their forums.

Also IMO openSUSE is the most polished up OS out of the bunch, it's good to know what you're doing though before you can make good use of it.

[salmonmoose]

Where did you guys learn linux? From just tinkering around or were you formally trained?

Forced myself to learn it.

Literally drank a bottle of gin (Bombay Saphire) and installed Ubuntu in a fit of rage, because Windows just wouldn't do something (although for the life of me I can't remember what).

If you actually understand why an operating system works, it's really not that hard, it just exposes you to things you might not be used to.

Ubuntu is great to learn on because of the community, but it's worth noting that you'll have to unlearn some things.

It's good not working on your Windows box, when it inevitably gets to that crotchety stage, you can just blast the install away start fresh but keep doing your work. As I'm mostly developing I just code on my EeeBox, and don't bother rebooting to change OS, just switch inputs on my monitor and use the other keyboard :)

[wbaltz]

I highly advise Ubuntu. There are lots of different Linux distributions. Some are extremely expert-oriented. It's hard to go wrong with Ubuntu. It's easy for a novice to use. It's easy to install. There is a lot of community support because there are a lot of users. More users leads to higher quality.

I am somewhat of a an expert with computers and I use Ubuntu Linux 99% of my day. I only use Windows when I have to for some reason. Linux is really great when it comes to 3D work because you can shutdown all the stuff you don't need. If you're running a large render job that will takes days to complete, you can shutdown uneeded processs, like the GUI to save memory and processor time. It's a hassle for a quick render. But if you are doing a lot of rendering, or if you have dedicated render nodes, the savings can really add up.

Also, the command line can be scary at first. But once you know how to use it, you'll wonder how you got along without it. When it comes to batch processing, you can't beat it.

[ThE_JacO]

If you're running a large render job that will takes days to complete, you can shutdown uneeded processs, like the GUI to save memory and processor time.

Except that if you take X completely offline more apps than not will not work even in batch mode, as won't most rendering engines on the market.
Sure, you can take down your DE (if there are no dependencies, which there often are), but you're very unlikely to get away without a WM, and with the kind of bidirectional WM/DE integration these days it's hard to take one down without the other (try offlining an old KDE and leaving nautilus up for a giggle, and no, switching to black or some other lightweight WM isn't an option since it takes a crapton of time and domain knowledge to make the latest Maya or XSI run with those, when it's possible at all).

Mind, I'll advocate Linux over Win any day of the year for a farm or any RPM intensive work, but the whole idea of culling gui services to save memory ends up saving you 30 or 40 megs at best most times once you leave up X, most WM and the API live, and with a 64bit system that's absolutely pointless in first place.

If anything the much better filesystems available and the more robust paging management are much stronger arguments to make in favour of Linux over Win for rendering.
For all of that though (RPM box) Ubuntu is the absolute worst choice possible.

[Bou7a]

For dual booting, The best way to do it is to:

create a Ubuntu boot floppy/cd.

use GParted (in Ubuntu) to free up at least 10GB HDD space

Then install Windows XP normally to that free space.

Finally, boot Ubuntu from the boot disk, and re-install grub after adding Windows to the boot menu.
You could also try WINGRUB.