Switching OS and licences

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Hi,

I currently use Mac OSX to run Houdini but am changing over to Ubuntu. Will i need to return my licences in order to install them on Ubuntu?

I'm using the same MacPro to run Ubuntu and am just partitioning the drive so will have OSX and Ubuntu on there.


Thanks for any help.

Chris
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Would be quite interested in this topic too. I have a non floating license and would like to switch operating system on the same computer ..
i think the support told me that the license is linked to an ip address .. so this should be no problem ….
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Don't take my words on this but from what I have understood it should not be necessary to return the license if it's switching OS on the same machine.
It's probably easiest to do so tho to avoid problems.
Drive, monkey, drive!
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Thanks for the replies, i read up a bit more and i think if the computer name on the os's is the same in theory it should be ok.

Unfortunately the name on my Mac OSX is xxxxx.local whilst when i edit the hostname to be the same in ubuntu it doesn't recognise the .local so i guess i'm going to have to return the licences.

Be interested if anyone else has had any luck with this though.
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hi im using an Escape workstation license .

i installed linuks mint lately alongside my win7 OS to try it .

what i did during the setup was just being careful when assigning the computer's name ( i put the same as i have on win7 OS ) .

my commercial license installed just fine .

thats my experience though , so maybe you should contact support to assist you , so you do not spare any ‘redeem’ just for changing the OS .




.cheers
except the things that cannot be seen , nothing is like it seems .
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You can return the license via the License administrator, then redeem your license again on your new machine, regardless of OS. Beware, however, you may only be able to do this for about 3 times.
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Hi,

I've managed to get it working

I changed my hostname on ubuntu to match the OSX one but it still didn't seem to work but then i went to install licences in the Licence Admin and chose to “Reinstall Licence Server” even though there were no licences there and now all seems fine.

Not really sure why, my Licence Server Codes are still different on the 2 OS's but both copies seem to run fine.

Cheers

Chris
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I don't think it's as simple as ensuring that both hostname matched. Each host will have a unique host ID to which your license is tide to…
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TheUsualAlex
You can return the license via the License administrator, then redeem your license again on your new machine, regardless of OS. Beware, however, you may only be able to do this for about 3 times.

Just curious, what would happen if it's more than 3 times? Some company would require the user to pay a small amount of transfer fee to be able to transfer 3 more times after that. What's the SideFX's policy on this?
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TheUsualAlex
I don't think it's as simple as ensuring that both hostname matched. Each host will have a unique host ID to which your license is tide to…

I think the host ID is just the hardware MAC address of your network card.

It gets complicated if/when you have multiple network interfaces.
Many license systems use the hardware MAC address of the first network card/interface returned by the operating system. Different operating systems may evaluate the network interfaces in a different order, thus ending up with a different ID.

On a laptop I once had a problem as the OS returned the WLAN adapter first, and thus my license was to that MAC address / host ID. When I disabled the WLAN to save battery, my license stopped working.. took a while to figure it out
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Just curious, what would happen if it's more than 3 times?
You need to contact support. It shouldn't be a problem to top up your returns.
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