Hi.
I'm having problems running Houdini on my ubuntu machine.
It's intel core i3 processor with integrated GPU. I have no separate videocard.

I downloaded apprentice version houdini-11.0.581-linux_i686_gcc4.4.tar.gz
Installation went ok and Houdini launches. But when I try to put some object in the scene houdini dissappears and this error message is displayed:
Fatal Error: data saved to /tmp/ap.2861.hip

Here's /tmp/crashlog_ap:
Crash report from ap; Houdini Master Version 11.0.581
Traceback from Thu Feb 3 22:33:27 2011
Caught signal 11
createCrashLog(UTsignalHandlerArg, char const*) (AP_Interface.C:0)
AP_Interface::coredumpHandler(UTsignalHandlerArg) (??:0)
UT_Signal::processSignal(int, siginfo*, void*) (??:0)
<unknown>

Is it at all possible to run Houdini on Intel HD graphics?

Not currently. The Intel OpenGL implementation appears to have some serious issues. Multiple OpenGL contexts don't work very well, which Houdini requires, and their GLSL compiler doesn't seem to be able to compile most of the GLSL shaders Houdini ships with.

This recent forum post [opengl.org] over at OpenGL.org pretty much sums it up.

Even worse, the new Sandy Bridge (Core i 2000 series) graphics don't work at all with Linux yet.

I see, thank you twod.
Guess I need external graphics card then. Any nvidia card will do, right?

Officially, Houdini only supports NVidia Quadro graphics. But if you're willing to work around the occasional geforce issue, you can use a consumer card. I would recommend a card with at least 1GB of VRAM; the number of shaders is currently not a major factor unless you enable HQ lighting. I would also recommend an OpenGL 4 capable card over an older generation.

Nvidia is currently more stable on Linux than AMD/ATI graphics, so I wouldn't recommend an ATI solution on that plaform at the moment (though it has been a while since I re-tested it).