freelance/self employed/generalist market

All the more reason to move to a linux based system, as the ‘small guy’ has even less resources than a studio.

Will the mac be better in 5-10 years, price point wise?

I use a Hackintosh which is basically the same exact price as a Linux box.

fuos

kevinthebright
Since the new Mac Pros aren’t coming until 2019 now, I think I’ll switch Houdini to a Linux box. Recommendations on models, places to buy, Linux distros?

Go with a Windows box tbh. Linux can be a world of pain that MacOs does not train you for. Windows seems a bit more crashy than Linux but a hell of a lot better than MacOs.

You're not considering the performances and speed.

Typicaly you can observe 25% speed boost on linux when rendering, simulating, even when using your GPU to render, even the file I/O is way better !

That's a serious argument

Midphase
I use a Hackintosh which is basically the same exact price as a Linux box.

which is not really the same as a mac, but in that case…up the window time frame that the ‘freelancer’ catagory we are talking about will consider a Hackintosh let alone knowing such builds can exist…to…10-15 years.

And in that time who knows what other type of development whether software or hardware begins to take hold, that developers would really want to start focusing on.

Midphase
I use a Hackintosh which is basically the same exact price as a Linux box.

Which is basically less stable than Linux .. on outdated OpenGL .. Without any support except some hackinotsh sites like Tony … What is point?

The main argument for using a particular OS is the software available that can run on it, and that happens to be Linux's main weakness.

For now we're continuing on with OpenGL as usual. Despite what many people say about it being outdated, GL4.5 is pretty competitive for the sorts of things that Houdini is doing, especially if modern practices are followed (which we do). Vulkan is too low level, and Metal/DirectX are OS-locked and non-portable, limiting their usefulness to us.

SreckoM
Which is basically less stable than Linux .. on outdated OpenGL .. Without any support except some hackinotsh sites like Tony … What is point?

Let me ask you this — Are you a Mac user and a Hackintosh user?

Unless your answer is yes, explaining to you what's the point is a bit like explaining to you what's the point of eating Nutella if you have no idea what it tastes like!

I am. Was more than decade OSX user and one of my workstation is hackintosh for sole reason of being able to work with software I purchased all these years. Rarely using it for 3d even nowadays, though it has much better hardware than you can find on any Apple devices. Hackintosh: every update is risk of something stops working, you really never know how safe it is (many kernel things are patched), limited number of hardware, still not 100% sure how good USB works as Rehabman stuff is like for PhD, you are really never sure is system working nicely, and finally you get 0 support from Apple or from any other dev as your system is not supported at all … Yes OSX is great, for some best, but to me it makes sense only with real Apple device, hackinotsh is good, for toying, can do you job but for professional work I would stay from it. Thus me saying why …

Don't want to hijack the thread, but Hackintosh has gotten a lot better in recent years. I remember several years ago it was decisively more problematic. I earn my entire living on my Hackintosh, and I often refer to it as the most stable “Mac” I have ever owned (I've been on Mac since the Mac Plus to give you an idea).

Houdini has been pretty solid on my machine, although it's more crash prone than most of the other apps I use regularly (from Pro Tools and Logic Pro to Blackmagic Resolve, Aftereffects, and C4D). Having said that, Houdini is still far more stable on my Hackintosh than it is on my Mac Book Pro.

But yeah, to each his own. I'm all for whatever works for anyone's purposes, as long as they make educated choices.

Just to throw my tuppence in too:

I'm a proud owner of two Indie licences - I'm probably a typical example of the new users SideFX are trying to reach. One-man studio, relatively new to Houdini, but with enough exposure to it that I now engineer my project proposals in such a way that I'll get to use Houdini for projects. Utterly in love with it.

And I love my Macs. Hated the whole idea of Apple's walled garden for years, but now I'm in it (and the reality-distortion effect has had time to kick in), I dread the thought of having to go back to Windows, or having to deal with Linux distros and device drivers and all that tech-supporty stuff again. Spent most of my life doing tech-support, but now I'm a relatively successful graphics bod, I don't want to to tech-support stuff ever again, even if it's just for me.

So for me the additional costs of buying a Mac (vs a Win/Linux box) are nothing compared to the amount of time I'd be spending doing all the administration tasks the other OSes require.

I would be gutted to find Houdini (or Blender, for that matter) not working on MacOS in the future. It would feel like a new dark age.

Hey good to know know @howiem! I feel the same, I use Houdini everyday on my MacBookPro and it’s a great setup.

The crazy thing is that Houdini even runs on my dinky little MacBook (2016 12“ retina). It's the most ridiculously skinny and light little machine, definitely not intended for 3D use; I got it for writing scripts/pitches while away from the studio, never imagining I could use it for anything more than a bit of word-processing or browsing.

And though you wouldn't want to try running chunky sims or rendering, for experimenting and coding it's perfect. And it means that I can have this tiny little sliver of a machine in my bag I can take anywhere, and if I get 10 minutes to myself (a precious and rare occurrence) I can flip it open and carry on creating and learning. Portable heaven.

Back at the studio (ok, the spare bedroom) I have a couple of cheese-grater Mac Pros upgraded to 12-core Xeons and GTX 1080Tis, and they handle my rendering and sims with ease. They're nearly 10 years old now, and while I thought at the time I was making an incredibly risky decision, they've more than paid for themselves…. and they've still got a few more years' life in them.

Man, it is interesting that Apple decide to deprecate OpenGL while at the same time using Houdini to show off their interim ”professional workstation" solution. And Apple's gambits don't always pay off; I hope they don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

(I'd probably end up going Windows rather than Linux, if I had to; but there's something dark and scary about Win10 and its need to inform the mothership of every move I make, every app I open)

That sounds like a cool setup, well if the cheese graters are still rocking it, maybe skip the trash can and hold out for the next line they have been hinting at .
I just have the MacBook pro 2015, it’s hooked up to a 4K monitor for most of the time but whenever I have to head out I just grab it and roll, it’s a little beast! The only thing that I’d Like to see in Houdini is proper full screen mode and support to run panes in different spaces (which could be dangerous for me because I’d end up with a lot of spaces). Let’s just hope they do something that allows Houdini stay happening. A lot of the webinars and demos seem to be created in OSX so there must be some SideFX people into it