Hi there, im new in the linux world and i thought maybe someone could help me out. Im going to instal linux at my pc and i was wondering what distro would be better (actually what distro would run these 2 programs (Maya 6.0 3D program [Alias Wavefront] and Shake 3.5 editing and composition [Apple]). I know these 2 programs run on linux i just need to know which distro runs it. Ill only use linux for those 2 programs. Well. thanks for any help

1) don't post the same thread on multiple forums, it's no use. if somebody can and has time to help, (s)he will see your thread even when it's only on one forum. multiple threads of the same thing have therefore no use, but they do take space from other threads...so please only post it once, and only in one forum.

2) if the apps run on linux, they should run on any distribution as far as I know (don't know about BSDs, but hey, they aren't just the same as linux). so just pick up your favourite. I'd say Fedora is suitable for newbies, as it's quite user friendly and "easy" to use...try it out. I'm sorry but I cannot help you to actually make the apps work, since I haven't used them, but if you know they run on linux, then you should have no worries. check out redhat.com -> fedora for details on the Fedora project...

hey bouncer, thanks for the fast responce
sorry about the double post. i posted on the newbies but then i saw this software part so i thought to post here.
i guess ill get fedora, or maybe suse (because i have some friends using it so i might get better/faster help) and ill try it out.
thanks anyway

Lotus, next time when you notice your post is in the wrong forum, please report it and just write where it should be.

Dude, you better go with SUSe, `cause Fedora is a toy linux, it doesn't have good implementations of Linux Headers and C libs, suse is more reliable, and when you feel familiar with linux, and you become to feel like you can go to Pro Stuff, get Slackware which is the most flexible Distro.

i use Maya 6 with linux, another important thing to be aware of is your OpenGL Drivers and
Hardware setting of your 3D card. if you have ATI or NVidia is a piece of cake to make it
run like hell.

Other cards may have you work a little harder on GLX...

i used to work with IRIX 6.5/SGI (silicon Graphics) and SOFTIMAGE|XSI, SOFTIMAGE|3D but then i had to switch to PC and now i am still runnin those Softimage apps. in my Linux Box, you have to see those CPUs Rendering with MentalRay!!

Good Luck,

Mr. Boy

mara: sorry bout that!! ill pay more attention next time!

mrboy: hey bud, awesome reply there!! thjats wat i needed

i got nvidia fx5200 so i guess i wont have big problems making it work right!? 1 question i got is if the drivers for my vga card will be diferent from windows to linux.
also another thing im wondering is if i have another pc on the network, like mine i have windows and linux and the other 1 just windows. if when im running linux on mine, will i be able to acess all the files that are shared (windows files) by the other computer running windows?

thanks anyway!

maya 6 and shake run on redhat 9. maya 6.01 fixes some stability bugs when doing network renders. maya will run on fedora too, though i haven't stress-tested it myself. alias only qualifies maya 6 for redhat 9 and redhat enterprise. personally, i could never get maya to run on suse 8, but suse 9 might be different. it can probably done just by moving around a few libraries, but is probably more of a pain than it's worth.

for your nvidia card, neither distro will probably config it correctly out of the box. nvidia won't open-source their driver, so for legal reasons a lot of distros don't include it by default. however, it's not hard. just do your install, ignore the part about the display and graphics card, download the driver from nvidia, run it, and reboot. we use nvidia quadro 2, geforce 4, and quadrofx.

if anyone has practical test results or advice for fedora core 3 or suse 9, i'd love to hear them - we're probably going to try upgrading to one or the other soon.