Hello all! I've gone from windows xp/vista to linux when my master harddrive decided to completely crash. So, to make sure it was just a harddrive, I bought a new one and install linux because I don't feel like paying another 170 bucks for vista. Anyways, I've been messing around with mandriva 2007 for a few days now and I'm still not sure whether or not to keep with linux.

Mainly, for these reasons. I go to school for computer animation, so I need programs like 3ds Max, Maya, adobe, flash, and I have no idea whether or not linux can support those programs. I'm thinking I might have to get windows and do some dual booting because this os seems pretty sweet from what I can tell.

So ya, just introducing myself to the forums and wondering about the whole 3d program thing.

phil

Maya does not support linux, you'll have to dual-boot. There is however blender, which will not replace maya, but it's worth trying. It has it's own game engine and movie editor all-in-one. Plus it's the most innovative gui I've ever seen.
http://www.blender.org

wing 3d seems to be good for quick models, I've never used it though.

The Linux Motion Picture Pipeline
http://www.linuxmovies.org/software.html

Darn near any programming app in windows has an equivalent in linux. Some linux apps are even better than windows.

A few years back some guys made a short film exclusively with OSS software:
http://www.elephantsdream.org/
And I just found a new and similar project:
http://peach.blender.org/

wow, I'm impressed with how quickly you've responded. Anyways, I do know of blender, but the reason I need max and maya is because I'm in class that we need to use those programs. Guess I'll dual boot because I finally figured out how to install aim and get irc working on here. Now, I just really need sound.

According to wikipedia, Maya does run on Linux.

well, as we all know, wikipedia isn't the most reliable reference

http://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/105/858050
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet...112&id=7639522

Wikipedia is not the only source for this, apparently.

Cool. I stand corrected.

Hi All,

Been on PCs for a long time and looking to switch to Linux. I currently have a few PCs, and a MAC mini OSX 10.4.

My main goal is to set up a Render Farm for Maya 8.5+, using existing XP PCs (my main one my being the Maya workstation) and installing Linux on a few other older/salvaged PCs which don't have Windows licenses.

I believe that Mandrake Mini 10.1 (using Samba) is the way to go, however have only just started looking at Linux seriously and am open to any or all suggestions as to which 'distro' is the best for my current project. The Maya Autodesk site only mentions RedHat though, so any ideas?

Looking to use either Smedge, Spider SX or Dr Queue for the Render Farm Management, but open to others that might work better.

Any other helpful hints muchly appreciated.

Regards,
Daniel (aka Legopimp)

If you're building a render farm, you'll be doing a custom/minimal install (aren't you?), so the exact distro probably isn't key, unless you want official support of course...

Maya runs on Linux for sure. I will recommend OpenSuse because of its easiness. 3ds max does not have version for linux.
Have no experience in cluster rendering.

That is likely indeed but not certain. When IBM released their Symphony suite, I assumed that it would run on any Linux distro but I was wrong there, it only ran (well) on Red Hat and Suse as advertised. Not that tested all of them but that it should fail with popular distributions like Ubuntu or Debian clearly shows that anything goes doesn't apply in all cases. Still, CentOS is essentially a Red Hat clone so it should work just as well as the "real thing" and so should any other Red Hat based distro like Fedora.