Linux

#3

Ubuntu for users new to Linux. Relatively easy to set up and plenty of free support. Lovely to use as well.

RHEL is apparently pretty solid as well though not as sexy…

#4

If we’re talking maturing experience/learning the platform for feature/vfx work, Ubuntu is as useless as it gets, because quite removed from the “linux experience” you get in your average shop (and XSI won’t work on it easily, if at all, and Maya is a pain in the arse to get running on it).
RHEL is a slow release platform intended chiefly for server work, and is a repackage and stabilization of older fedoras (the bleeding edge, media distro by RH) usually a couple years or more behind the curve. RHEL’s benefit is that you pay for it, and get support in turn, if you don’t pay for it, you might as well go for CentOS.

Again, Fedora Core is the only easily accessible, widely available distro worth considering for a complete newbie to Linux at this junction if their focus is CG work.
Mandriva can be considered a close second, but isn’t supported/tested against by vendors in this field.

#5

thanks guys, I appreciate the info.

#6

Fedora core 8 is not currently supported by XSI (will crash at startup, afaik). I think you should start by looking at the published system requirements for the apps - and what’s that bit about Adobe products?

The people that have all of that running well and fine are generally in a larger company with help to get issues resolved - I think you should play safe and follow the system requirements, or plan to invest time going throught the threads about Linux support, for example here:
http://www.xsibase.com/forum/index.php?board=30

#7

Thanks, Luceric. That link is very helpful.

#8

From http://www.softimage.com/support/xsi/system_requirements/v7_5.aspx

Autodesk Softimage for Linux 32 bit Operating system:
Fedora Core 5 (Recommended Linux Distribution)

                     **Please note that Autodesk Softimage Version 7.5 may run on  other distributions of Linux, however
                       these are neither tested nor supported by Autodesk.

                     [b]Memory:[/b]
                       2 GB or greater of RAM

                     [b]Autodesk Softimage for Linux 64 bit[/b]
                     
                         [b]Operating system:[/b]
                       Fedora Core 5 (Recommended Linux Distribution)                         **Please note that Autodesk Softimage Version 7.5 may run on  other distributions of Linux, however
                       these are neither tested nor supported by Autodesk.

                     [b]Memory:[/b]
                   4 GB or greater of RAM
#9

people should check their fax before posting.
maya is a breeze to install under ubuntu, and works great - tried, tested, and using.
as for ubuntu being useless, i met a couple of months ago a guy
that was working as developer for side effects. guess what, they use mostly ubuntu
as their main linux dev platform.
whaddayaknow…

#10

Fedora core 8 is not currently supported by XSI (will crash at startup, afaik). I think you should start by looking at the published system requirements for the apps - and what’s that bit about Adobe products?

It’s not supported, but all it takes is swapping a file around to get it to, and after that it’s actually a better platform than fc5 has ever been.

It’s not like you can recommend people the official supported platform is it? FC5 being the only supported bleeding edge distro in AD is beyond sad as jokes go.
Any new users approaching linux being asked to use it would either flee en masse, or simply find that it doesn’t even install on their super recent box (of 3 years ago, where fc5 support tapered out to absolutely nothing, after being officially discontinued in the fashion of FCs about a year and half before that).

That’s without mentioning customers were promised and double promised several times 7.0x or 7.x would have been the move to fc8/fc9 support.
I’d hope it will be the case for at least v8 :slight_smile:

You met somebody from sideFX, the ONLY company supporting debian distros.

Maya isn’t a breeze to instal on ubuntu all the time. Ubuntu being the russian roulette bastardized distro it is, if it won’t like something you’re doing with that particular incarnation of itself, will make it nearly impossible to rectify the problems. For your breezy successful installation you can find several hundreds that people just gave up on.

And anyway this is an XSI forum in case you didn’t notice, and XSI on ubuntu is a big no-go :slight_smile:

#11

I don’t understand why it is so hard to realize at Softimage that this is hurting users greatly. They never had decent distro supported, never was able to run recent hardware with linux version xsi without dedication to tweak the platform.

They are doing it right, use Houdini on Ubuntu, sorry to say I’ve ran several versions of xsi on ubuntu and it really is not a good idea. If you are on big production house with dedicated technicians why not make them miserable, they are paid for solving impossible missions. I know nothing of big houses but somehow feel they count their hours aswell.

Yes I’ve done it and don’t recommend. If you have to choose between fc5 and centos go centos 5 cause it is maintained, otherwise do follow what JacO wrote for fedora 8-9. XSI runs nice on fc 10, took some time to solve some problems and no 64bit capture with audio available cause xsi uses ancient openquictime that is really pain to compile on distros recent enough run xsi. Some places have them compiled but they are not shared, with all justice they paid developing hours for something they should have got as built in feature. So I’m using 32 bit xsi for now.

#12

I’m not following these linux things closely… Are you saying that Fedora Core 5 was discontinued two years before it shipped? :stuck_out_tongue: ( If I’m not mistaken, Fedora core 5 was released in 2006, 3 years ago last month. it’s 3 years newer than Windows XP! :stuck_out_tongue: )

#13

JacO may have the priviledge to explain OS maintaining cycles versus hardware and kernel compiling against components. One thin worth mentioning for Stoehr is avoid ati cards as much as Debian based distros like Ubuntu. This will make your life much easier and linux more pleasant to learn.

#14

true enough, was never able to install xsi on ubuntu,
and believe me, i have tried…
and its not like i dont know linux. problem is,
even if i got it to start and “work”, something somewhere at some point
went bananas.

#15

Thanks guys! I appreciate your input and experiences. I’m looking forward to not using Windows for my 3d work, and your help makes this transition easy. I’m definitely avoiding ATI! thanks for the tip.

#16

Sorry, my bad.
FC5 was released in .0.0, and dev froze, 3 years and spare change ago. Which means it’s only 6 months before that they actually stopped doing any serious dev on it and focused on packaging and building, and 6 months after that all work by FP on it stopped.

The nature of FC releases is that when it’s wrapped they stop doing anything on it and start on the new cycle, release emergency/stabilization patches for another 6 months with a skeletal crew, and then leave those patches up for another 6 again (a core has an 18 months cycle split in three semesters. First is wrapping, second is basic maintenance, third is availability), after which you can’t rely on fedora project for anything, and you have to hunt around for any updates.

I was going by the timeline of what were using in RSP, so it was probably FC4 that was wrapped 4 and half years ago, and we moved fo fc5 in rc 4 years ago there.

So feel free to scrap what I said. FC5 has only been frozen 4 months less than 3 years ago, and made an absolute nightmare to deal with if you didn’t finalize your build in time 2 and half years ago.
Its 64bit version, much like XP’s, remains a stillborn bastard child (with only FC7 being worse) of a transitional period, since the 64bit support was tentative at best back then, and it only became successful with FC8.

The unavailability of drops and state of YUM in FC5, compared to fc 8, 9 and 10 also make for a pretty big disparity between the quality of the releases and how hard or easy they are to deploy and maintain for your average Joe who only wants to use the OS and not spend time on it.

As it stands FC8 is nearly dead, FC9 is weeks away from being frozen but will remain available and supported for a bit longer, and FC10 is currently the bleeding edge.
FC8 (9 is good but minor compared to what 8 brought on the table) has now been available and the intended target platforms for a lot of shops all over the place, and Soft and AD have been the only reasons holding everybody back.

The comparison to XP’s timeline doesn’t necessarily mean much btw. It’s not like windows cycles are anything better than embarassing, and unique to MS alone.

#17

It has been said on this thread, sorry for the broken record but if you are able to get those updates FC5 provided on it’s lifetime, it still may not run on hardware available at stores, cause hardware support is coded on kernel. While configuring your kernel may enable anything either on kernel or module level that was supported on that specific kernel version. I’ve compiled kernel only couple of times and felt it really is not my interest, so sorry if any inaccuracy.

#18

What about making some kind of petiton ore action to get things moving on Linux! If Sidefx can support most linux disrto, why isn’t Autodesk able to do hold one version of linux up todate?

#19

Soft and now AD are private companies, and they are well aware of the userbase needs and requsts, particularly Soft, which still retains a good chunk of their pre-acquisition closeness to the userbase.
Petitions in a case like this are useless, if you’re a paying or potential cusomer just mail them and let them know.

Besides, it -is- a nightmare to support multiple distros with the kind of userbase they have (and potentilly also due to som corporate policies). SideFX doesn’t have anywhere near the same kind of overhead in supporting different distros.

I don’ care what distros they support anyway, I only want the app to be better and more smartly deveoped and packed for deployment (Qt instead of mainwin, more regular builds available, better deployment plans with less staticity, dependencies on libraries not from 1996, no discrepancies in licensing and no stupid ADLM etc.). Once that’s in place multiple distros support becomes moot since you’d at least be able to get it runing with some work on most of the distros worth using, and to hell with what’s official, which will never be really on par with industry needs anyway.
The same goes for Maya anyway, which forces people on ancient platforms, or to jump through several hoops, on fire, wit your clots soaed in gsoline, to get it running on anything that’s not considered ancien even in geolocial terms.

Motif and fc4-5/old rhel/centos? come on…

#20

If Autodesk could support one distro that is up todate and do it well. That would be enough for me.
I think that everone can agree that it is way to cumbersome to get xsi up and running on Linux today for the average user.

#21

openquicktimeXSI

Thought there was need for this.

#22

i’ve been using ubuntu since version 6.06 and i can assure you that their updates suck major… i had lots of updates that broke X and if i didn’t know my way around the command line, i would’ve had to spend hours trying to restore the settings that worked…

i read somewhere that an ubuntu developer would compile code, package it in a .deb and release it in one day and night, whereas with Fedora, they test the package for at least a week before it becomes official… i don’t know if this is true but from my experience, i would say it’s most likely the case…