Hi,
I have completed a long process of building a triple boot system. I simply followed the manuals here and there. Went through various posts and forums to fix small problems.

And finally it works. All the three OSes are pretty stable. Houdini runs perfect on the Linux site. It even renders faster than my desktop computer at the office. So If you have an intel based mac… you should try this. It is a hard quest… but everything is there on the net. Maybe the most critical thing to start with is choosing Ubuntu 7.04 and selecting the alternate text based installer… not the LiveCD.

For those who are still confused, I would like to repeat… this is not emulation, no virtual PC softwares… no Parallels and etc… three partitions, three independent systems. Of course you can choose just OSX and Linux.

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Now I would like to now… I know that there are people who has done that. Since I am a newbie Linux user… I wounder what kind of tools do you install and use to speed up and enhance your Linux workflow…

I used the synaptic tool to download some small things like “kate” and some other critical system things needed to fix issues with MACs and linux… things like ATI driviers… CPU and HDD temperature tools etc… (all are listed in the online documentations)

But what else might be a good tweak to a Linux system (Ubuntu 7.04)… any of your favorite tools?

Thanks.

MacBook PRO / core DUO 2.16 / 2GB RAM / ATI X1600

Your tri-boot is a very nice setup and I am interested in the same config.
How has it been going so far (I noticed your post is a year old)?
I have the newest 17 inch macbook pro (with Geforce card) and have been running Houdini in VMWare's MacFusion.
Works pretty well though clearly a bit sluggish.
I am trying to install houdini in the latest 7.x Ubuntu via MacFusion since building plugins on Windows costs money.
So you say Houdini runs in that Ubuntu build okay?
Thanks.

Hi,
i just setup houdnin 10.0.374 on my 17inch macbook pro,
3.06 GHZ cORE 2 Duo
4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 512MB
Mac OS X 10.58

i instaled houdni ok on windows parallels , the problem is that when i render the mplay window pops up and the render is black. I know the hip file renders on other machines so im not sure if i have missed something here?

anyone got any thoughts?

cheers

I am dying to know how painful it was, and the most important question I have is can you import files from Ubuntu while in Windows and OSX? An example of what I'm trying to ask is, can you, after having rendered a Houdini scene in Ubuntu, import the files into a program like Final Cut Pro, After Effects, etc, while in either OSX or Windows? Or must you do everything in Ubuntu? A reply would be greatly appreciated. This is a great topic.

Freespark.. you can't do what you are saying when using partitions.. I believe it is possible to access files on other partitions but you can't run the two operating systems simultaneously on one computer.. however it is possible to do what you are saying using a virtual machine, such as vmware, but in my experience this gives poor performance to the point of being unusable (for 3d apps).

To install multiple partitions just grab a copy of Gparted (open source) which is bootable and will easily enable you to create the different partitions to which you can install the operating systems. Sometimes you can get away with having the installer for the OS do the partitioning for you, when you are installing a 2nd OS to a hard drive that already has one.. in my experience this only works when you have windows installed first and then install linux.. when I've tried it the other way around windows seems to find fault with linux.

I too have used houdini in ubuntu and was quite impressed but unfortunately it won't work well when I access the machine remotely (through Freenx).. the performance when accessing remotely is much better on windows and I usually work from my laptop connecting to my desktop (that runs houdini).

I have pretty good linux experience, mainly with ubuntu, and I think that since you are running ubuntu you don't need to worry about much as far as improving performance… the ubuntu community seems to do a great job of optimizing their operating system for the latest hardware.. the only thing if you haven't done it yet is to enable the restricted drivers and install them for things like your graphics card and wireless card.. I could be wrong about there being more stuff to do to improve the system but I think its a pretty safe bet that its already running close to its potential unless you have some old or obscure hardware in your system.

Kenobi.. did you install the restricted drivers for your graphics card? I am guessing this might be the issue but am not certain.. another thing to try is running ubuntu as root or sudo (super user) as linux is different than the commercial operating systems in that it has extra security features built in and sometimes this prevents it from accessing something it needs when it doesn't have the proper permission. Hardcore linux people will tell you running things as root is a bad idea but at least try it to cross that out as a problem and just don't edit any system files or anything as root unless you are trying to do something specific.