I am new to linux. I got Ubuntu working. Now I want to install Houdini Apprentice. I have downloaded the file. Now I am not sure what to do. In fact, I have no clue at all what to do. I have never used linux.

I have run a program called “program manager,” clicked on the various Houdini folders, but nothing seems to happen. The other folders look like serious gibberish stuff that makes no sense to me. I will be forever humble to a good person, if they can please guide me through theses baby steps. I want to master Houdini. And I am only an install away.

Thank you,
cg

ok post back some a little more information like:

1-What is the name of the file you downloaded?
2- Do you know how to extract a .gz file?
3- Do you know your root password? Don't post it here I just wanna make sure you know it.

I'm guesssing you probably downloaded the file to your home directory.
In a terminal try typing the following:


cd
ls -ltr


See if you see a houdini.xxxxx.tar.gz or something like that in there.
If you downloaded the file elsewhere, then cd into that directory to obtain the full name and make note of the path.

You should probably get a linux book and/or try the various linux forums for general linux help.

There should be a README or INSTALL file somewhere in there, I cant remember the name, but it documented the installation steps.

In a fresh terminal, do a
less INSTALL INSTALL being the filename you want to view. You can press up and down to browse the file.

file downloaded is called “houdini-8.0.474-linux_rhEL4.tar.gz”
By default, I allowed “Archive manager” to open the file. It created a folder called, “houdini-8.0.474-linux_rhEL4”
I extract from the Archive Manager and get three files which I placed into the “home” folder.
The three files are “Houdini.install” “Houdini.tar.gz” and “sesinetd.install”
I click on the first and it ask if I want to RUN “Houdini.install” or DISPLAY its contents, or RUN IN TERMINAL. I chose RUN…
Nothing happens…
I wait a few minutes…
I check the “system monitor.” Something is happening there. CPU 1=%100, CPU 2 =%19.8. So something is running the computer…

I am not hearing anything write to the drive. But the CPU's keep switching loads every 30 seconds…

The “Houdini.install” is using 49% of the CPU. This has been going on now for about 8 minutes. 12:51am -2-21-06

The rest of the computer seems to be working as normal. Should I let this go on?

In a terminal, browse to that folder and do this

./houdini.install

and follow the prompts

I've Houdini running on Ubuntu. The way you've tried the installation is not the way to go.

The most important difference of Ubuntu to other distributions is, that you don't have a root account. Things that are done by root in other distributions are done in Ubuntu using sudo and by the normal user (who needs to be in the admin group). There is a trick to get a root shell by calling ‘sudo bash’ on the terminal (or Konsole, if you're using kde). You will be asked to enter a password. This is the password of your user. After you typed the password correctly, you have a “root shell”. Now go to the directory, where the extracted files are placed and call ‘./houdini.install’. Make sure, that you exit the root shell again after installation. Don't start and work with Houdini as root.

Flash9000
file downloaded is called “houdini-8.0.474-linux_rhEL4.tar.gz”
By default, I allowed “Archive manager” to open the file. It created a folder called, “houdini-8.0.474-linux_rhEL4”
I extract from the Archive Manager and get three files which I placed into the “home” folder.
The three files are “Houdini.install” “Houdini.tar.gz” and “sesinetd.install”
I click on the first and it ask if I want to RUN “Houdini.install” or DISPLAY its contents, or RUN IN TERMINAL. I chose RUN…
Nothing happens…
I wait a few minutes…
I check the “system monitor.” Something is happening there. CPU 1=%100, CPU 2 =%19.8. So something is running the computer…

I am not hearing anything write to the drive. But the CPU's keep switching loads every 30 seconds…

The “Houdini.install” is using 49% of the CPU. This has been going on now for about 8 minutes. 12:51am -2-21-06

The rest of the computer seems to be working as normal. Should I let this go on?

ok you need to install via terminal. So open a terminal and cd to the directory where that houdini.install file is.

Type the following:

su


or

Type the following:

sudo bash


In either case, enter the password. Now that you have permissions to install, let's run the installer:


./houdini.install


Follow the onscreen prompts, agree to everything.
Installing houdini is the easy part. Try to get it running on linux is the trick! just kidding

Hehe..sort of. Flash, I recommend you take some time to learn a little more about Linux, too. Trying to learn a sophisticated app on an OS that I was only passingly familiar with would be quite the challenge. It's assumed when learning Houdini that you're comfortable with the OS it's running in(Linux or Windows). Of course, you'll be able to do many things just fine once it's running, but you'll start hitting brick walls pretty quickly once you go beyond the basics.

Just a suggestion. It's easy to get lost when trying to do more than one thing at a time - you don't know where the problem is: the OS, the app, or you.

Cheers,

J.C.

I tried the “su” thing in the terminal and got “Authentication failure.”
I also tried downloading again, in case there was an issue there. This time, I saved to the desktop instead of letting the “Archive manager” do it's thing. But when I double cliked the “.gz” icon, the “Archive Managert” took over anyway.

Why did my password not work in the terminal? Do I need to set up the root identity somewhere first? Like an additional user?

“cd” to a directory sounds good. tried it. but I could not get far here. this seems really important. Tried looking it up, sifted through all sorts to linux/unix/bash shell info, and ubuntu help, but could not figure out how to “cd” to a directory. Found a cool article on Stephen Bourne.

How does this “cd” thing work? How does one locate a terminal to a folder?

Thank you everyone for your patience. This must be painful for some of you to watch. I'll get better. I am learning a lot. Thanks for all of the help.

cg

“su” doesn't work on Ubuntu. An ubuntu system doesn't have a root account. Try “sudo bash” instead :-)

Ok, cd-ing to a directory is pretty easy. If you open a terminal, you are normally located in your home directory (/home/<username> or shortly called ~). The current directory is printed at the beginning of the command line. If it should happen, that you don't know in which direcory you are, type “pwd”, which stands for Print Working Directory. To go into a subdirectory (e.g. called bla) of the current directory type “cd bla”. Now you should see a change in the command line prompt. To go back to the directory one level higher you type “cd ..” The two dots have the special meaning of the parent directory (btw. one dot stands for the current directory). Sometimes one can't remember exactly how a subdirectory is called, in which case you can print the content of a directory with “ls”.

hth
Frank

First off, I commend you for diving in to Linux, Houdini, and all things that are “different” though I must warn you that it might prove to be a terrific challenge to get used to. I'm assuming that you (like myself) enjoy learning things by jumping right in to the deep end (possibly from the tall diving board…) so here's hopefully enough to get you started:

Flash9000
The three files are “Houdini.install” “Houdini.tar.gz” and “sesinetd.install”
I click on the first and it ask if I want to RUN “Houdini.install” or DISPLAY its contents, or RUN IN TERMINAL. I chose RUN…

Might want to try “RUN IN TERMINAL” instead. The houdini setup script (houdini.install) is intended to work from the command line. It's probably eating up 100% of one of your CPU's because it's trying to poll for input with no input acutally being available. All in all, it shouldn't be a problem. Just end/kill/terminate the process and all will be well.

Since you're new to Linux, I suggest familiarising yourself with the basics of working in a terminal. If you've used DOS in your youth, all of the basics will transfer right over. Some of the more common words, commands and utilities you'll run across are:

“command” - this is a program that you run at the command line, such as “cd” “rm” “sudo” or “sesinetd”

“argument” - This is an extra bit of information that you give to a command on the command line. For example, an argument to “cd” is the directory that you wish to switch to. If you wanted to go to your home folder, you could type “cd /home/myUserNameGoesHere” with the first argument being “/home/myUserNameGoesHere” – Some commands take multiple arguments, which is a world of fun in itself.

“path” - Basically the location of a file or directory in your filesystem, or relative to the directory that you are currently browsing.

“case-sensitive” - Means that your usage of capitals is important. “Mary” and “mary” are two different files.

cd (change directory) - Similar to clicking on a folder in your file browser, this changes the current working directory to the argument you've given it.

rm (remove) - People often joke about this command, telling new users to “rm -rf /” to clear up disk space. rm is a command that deletes things. the “/” is the place to start removing things from. “-r” means recursively. “-f” means to do so without asking first. Basically, use this one carefully.

ls (list) - Lists the contents of the current directory. You can use a few arguments to do interesting things like listing the contents of other directories or get listings in colors or columns.

tar (doesn't stand for anything, but historically a utility that went along with a compression utility called feather – tar and feather, ha ha) - tar is a tool for managing compressed archives. You can create them and extract them from the command line. “Archive Manager” is pretty much a user interface built on top of the tar utility. You'll be able to use tar to extract the contents of the houdini archive that you downloaded. You can do “tar -xzvf houdini-8.0.474-linux_rhEL4.tar.gz” and you will get “Houdini.install” “Houdini.tar.gz” and “sesinetd.install” just as you did with archive manager. The “-xzvf” switches do the following: “-x” eXtracts a tar archive that is “-z” Zipped “-v” Verbosely (prints the names of the extracted files) “-f” From the archive File “houdini-….”

man (manual) - For most of the smaller utilities (including all of the above) you can type “man NameOfUtilityHere” which will bring up a help page. Press “q” to quit. You can scroll through with the arrow keys and spacebar. This is a good set of documentation about program options. For example, “man tar” will get you a list of all the options for tar, plus some examples, and everything you could ever want to know about the program)

I hope that some of this information is of use to you. Best of luck in your explorations of Houdini and Linux. Perseverence is important. Out of curiousity, what Operating System are you coming from? It might help us give a common frame of reference to speak in.

Flash9000
How does this “cd” thing work? How does one locate a terminal to a folder?

cd is just change directory command.
Lucky for you, there's some very good reponses on here.

You said you downloaded the file to your desktop?
I don't know anything about your distro of linux but I'm going to guess that the Desktop is in your home folder.


/——Installing Houdini

Can you open a terminal? Sometimes if you right click on the desktop you'll be presented with a menu and 1 of the options is terminal. A terminal is kinda like a dos prompt if that helps.

IMPORTANT!
If you get stuck at any point, stop and either try to find the resoltution or post back with all/any error messages.

Once you have a terminal open try typing the following:
Note: make sure you hit enter after each set of commands.

cd Desktop/


This “should” put you inside the Desktop folder. Now type:

ls -ltr


The lastest file created should be at the bottom of the list. Look for something that says houdini.
Assuming you downloaded the same file as you posted previously , you should have a folder on your desktop called:

houdini-8.0.474-linux_rhEL4

I'm also assuming you used that Archive Manager thingy and it automagically made the folder on your desktop.

Ok so now we have the folder on the desktop and we can see the folder in the terminal. Let's install houdini!

Type:

cd houdini-8.0.474-linux_rhEL4/

This will put you inside the houdini-8.0.474-linux_rhEL4 folder.

You must become root to install houdini.
As per FrankFirsching's suggestions, Type:

sudo bash

When you are prompted for the password, enter your password.
I don't know if your distro want's your password or the root password you setup when you installed linux. My guess is the root password but your guess is as good as mine.


If all went well so far, then you have become the root user and you are inside the houdini directory ready to rock n roll and install this bad boy. Whew!

Let's install houdini now. Please type:

./houdini.install


From this point just agree with everything presented to you.
You'll first be presented with a license agreement.
Here's a shortcut for you:

You'll see the word “More” at the bottom left of the terminal. You can either keep hitting the enter key to scroll down and read the entire agreement or just hit the q key. q means quit but we're not really gonna quit.

In this instance, once you hit q, you'll will be presented with the option to agree or disagree. Just type yes.
On the next screen type y

On the next screen type F

On the next screen type F

On the next screen type y

Houdini should be installing now.

Now you will be asked to install the license server.
Type y

If you are asked to continue, type y

Like I said, agree to everything.

After a bunch of text gets printed on your terminal you should finally see:

We hope you enjoy using Houdini 8.0
Thank you

Yep you did it, you installed houdini on linux. Have a beer on me

In case you are wondering, yes I just reinstalled houdini on my machine so I could tell you what keys to press.

Now you have to run houdini.


/——Running Houdini

The first order of business is to exit the “root shell”. Remember how we typed “sudo bash” to become root? Well now we want to exit that and return to your user.

This can be done simply by typing

exit

You should now be you and not root. To verify you can type:

whoami

You should see your username.
If these last 2 commands give you any problems, just close the terminal and open up a new terminal which will essentially do the same thing as the last 2 commands.

Ok….now that you are you, we need to “source” the houdini script. This script sets environment variables, your path and some other things that I can't remember.

Type:

cd /opt/hfs8.0.474/

This should be the location where houdini was installed.

I'm assuming that you are using a BASH shell so type:

source houdini_setup_bash

You should see something like:

The Houdini 8.0.474 environment has been initialized.

Finally type:

houdini



/——Getting a Non-Commercial License

Houdini should “try” to run and the license administrator should ask you to install a non-commercial license. Hit yes, wait a minute or two to automagically obtain the license. Once the license is installed, hit the button that says something like “run houdini master”.

Houdini should run. You are on your way to becoming a houdini master.


/——Possible Problems

Now if you get as far as typing houdini and you get some sort of sesinetd error. Then you should see my long reply in this thread:
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=172&page=viewtopic&t=5253&highlight=sesinetd [sidefx.com]

If you get an error while trying to obtain a license, then search this forum as there's about 100 or so threads about this.

Now I'm tired and am heading to bed.

Post back your results and good luck!

/Rick


Disclaimer : Most of the material posted in this thread is from memory and not everything will be accurate. In the slight chance I'm wrong, then my fee is only 10 beers rather than the usual 40 :P

I just type huge reply, hit submit. It forced me to log in again and so I lost the reply.

Anyway,in a nut shell

I played with the Terminal, learned it, know it. I installed Houdini 8.0.474
Yes!
Initialized the environment
Tried to run it it and got “cannot execute binary file.”

Ugh

I restarted the machine, but that did not help.
I have read all of the notes everyone wrote. I did everything correctly. I answer yes to everything. It did install. The install should be good.

What is this “sesinetd.install”?
Let me guess. This is a daemon that needs to run in the background for a houdini sesion to work.
I should probably install this and try it again.

I “cd” to the install directory. sudo bash'd to root. tried to install the “sesinetd.install” and got “Permission denied.”

I was not expecting that. I am at a loss. it's installed. I just can't run it.
chris

flash9000
Tried to run it it and got “cannot execute binary file.”

A few random thoughts come to mind – Are you running on a 64-bit machine? (IE, a dual-core AMD64?) If so, did you grab an appropriate 64-bit binary?

It is also completely possible that Houdini simply doesn't run on Ubuntu for some esoteric reason such as the versions of your Ubuntu's libraries, or the included compiler. You might want to look into using one of Sesi's officially supported distributions (RHEL, or Debian, or one of a few others), or look for success stories/workarounds from other Ubuntu users (if any) on these forums. My personal biases demand that I give Gentoo a bit of a plug, saying the following: “it works for me” “try my houdini ebuild” “Both are unsupported by Sesi” and “You'll learn a lot by using Gentoo, but it won't be easy!”

THANK YOU RickW, FrankFirsching, JColdrick, scorpion007, tallkien, and NTmatter2.

Even though I haven't gotten to running the program yet, you are making this all of this frustration a fun experience. You are helping me a great deal and I will not forget it.

Thanks for the extensive notes. I am archiving them. If I ever make it big time, you all can come with me.
cg

Flash9000
I “cd” to the install directory. sudo bash'd to root. tried to install the “sesinetd.install” and got “Permission denied.”

The “sesinetd.install” file does not have the executable permission set, hence the “permission denied” problem. I'm guessing that you did install the license server as part of the install process (houdini.install) and still have to start the daemon. My memory fails me at this point, as I don't have the license server installed in the traditional manner, and I'm not sure exactly where the license server's start scripts get placed by a normal install. I'll leave that matter to someone else to answer.

Binary. Hmm
I am running a Dual 1.8 G5 Apple machine. I believe it is a 64 bit machine.
I grabbed the “linux i686 gcc3/4” because that was across from the Ubuntu Linux 5.10 listing. There is a “Linux x86 64gcc3.4” Should I have tried that one?

Should I uninstall the other one? How do I uninstall?

I'm sorry to tell you, that Houdini won't run on the Apple G5 (even if you are using linux instead of OS X). I think everyone here (at least me) thought that you are using an intel machine. It's a pitty, that I'm assuming these things, when I hear someone is using linux.

Unfortunately Linux on the Mac can not be considered the same as Linux on the X86. You can't even consider different versions of Linux on the same processor the same (which is the reason, why there are so many differen Houdini versions for Linux). The type of compatibility (e.g. for the different ubuntu systems on Mac and Intel) is the source-code level. This is fine, if you are using open source programs. There you can compile your own version of the program. The binary (assembly) code of the same program will be totally different for the Mac-Linux and the Intel-Linux.

If you now wonder, why the installer worked then, there is a simple explanation: The istaller ist not a binary program, but a simple shell script. Shell scripts are composed of text and do not rely on a specific processor, since they will be interpreted by the shell.