I was feeling adventurous. I nuked my Ubuntu install and replaced it with Sabayon, a gentoo-based distribution (www.sabayonlinux.org).

First off, here's the error message during the install:

Checking for running server… It has to be stopped before
we can install the new version
warning: saving copies of sesi* tools and licenses in BACKUP_SESI.20061004100410
tar: Pattern matching characters used in file names. Please,
tar: use –wildcards to enable pattern matching, or –no-wildcards to
tar: suppress this warning.
tar: houdini/sbin/sesi*: Not found in archive
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
cp: cannot stat `houdini/sbin/sesi*': No such file or directory

A problem has occurred installing the license tools.
Please correct any errors above and try again.



Houdini 8.1 Installation completed.


Please read /opt/hfs8.1.744/Readme.txt
for instructions on how to run Houdini.

*** NOTE ***
Some install errors seem to have occurred.
Your installation may not be complete.
Please correct any serious problems and re-install if necessary.

I first tried some of the various fixes I googled for houdini+gentoo, but i quickly realized that sesinetd never got copied to /etc/init.d/, nor did sesictrl go to /usr/lib/sesi/. I'm not sure what else didn't make it to where it's supposed to go. :?

I have tried copying those files to their intended destinations and then going by some of the tips posted here (for example Ben Simon's) but still no luck. I've also started sesinetd and hserver by hand, however hkey refuses to serve licences.


Any tips on how to fix her up would be greatly appreciated.

I think you need to add –wildcards to the tar command line as noted on this thread:
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=172&page=viewtopic&t=6304 [sidefx.com]

My personal take on it is that the latest tar is broken and users should log bugs against it. Notice that there are no wildcards given in the first place in those scripts.

Thank you Edward! That did the trick.

This distro uses AIGLX to provide an OpenGL accelerated desktop and needs the nvidia beta driver (for direct rendering, so you can have an accelerated desktop as well as run 3d apps normally). Houdini is having some issues with the interface (tab menu, ladder, right-click menus not rendering properly) and the performance seems iffy (probably because Houdini has to share GPU resources with the desktop), though I have only played around with it a bit.

I really loves me some eye-candie, so I hope Houdini is practical on this. I'm liking KDE as well. OK, now for some pretty screenshots…


[pixelheretic.com] [pixelheretic.com]
[pixelheretic.com] [pixelheretic.com]
[pixelheretic.com]


Thanks again Edward. :wink:

I have installed Houdini in Sabayon miniEd. Houdini runs with the issues of DaJuice. But I have a new problem: I have to reinstall sesinetd.install every time that I restart my computer.

I have installed Houdini in others linux (Fedora Core 4 and 64studio) and I didn't need to reinstall the sesinetd.

Any suggestion?

Is the file gone, or is something else on your system changing permissions on it? Or, maybe the permissions on the file aren't being set properly?

Sesi goes ok (if I reinstall it every time I restart the computer) . And Houdini works. The permissions are correct (as root). And I think that nothing is changing the permissions. Don't worry. Surely I will install Mandriva. I only ask this problem because it is curios.

The service sesinetd don't autostart. The solution that I have found is to init manually sesi. Every time that I restart linux I write this line in a terminal:

cd /usr/lib/sesi; ./sesinetd; cd /opt/hfs8.2.13/; source houdini_setup_bash; cd bin; ./hmaster

For me it works.

You could put the server script in /etc/init.d and then create a symbolic link in your default runlevel directory. It should autostart then. You might need to copy some configuration files around (to for example /etc/conf.d) or even modify them a bit.

I added most of the houdini bash script to my user bash profile so i can start houdini from wherever i want. In /opt i make a symbolic link to teh houdini version i am running called hfs8. That way i don't need to update my bash profile.