I am planning to install 64 bit linux specifically for houdini. I have experience with installing and running windows and mac osx, but no experience at all with linux.

Right now I'm downloading the latest 64 bit debian (4 dvd installation). Is this the best solution? Is there anything I should know ahead of time in order to get linux 64 bit and houdini up and running, with drivers for my hardware, etc.

By the way, I'm running an intel mac pro, triple booting with windows xp, win xp 64, and mac osx, and they're all running very well.

Thanks for any insight you all can offer, and I'm looking forward to hearing any suggestions and tips.

There's no “best” solution, if you're drawn to Debian it should serve you well. Personally, I'm a SUSE fan, been running 64 bit on it for some time. As far as drivers, each distro doesn't particularly have it's own drivers - they're all culled from the kernel work that's being done out there for the most part, but how it's packaged can make a world of difference. There are differences between distros, but with the more common ones it's pretty hard to make an argument for one over the other unless you've tried them out. I'd start with Deb and see how you like it. Try to keep it “loose and fast” for a few days - don't get too committed to it - because you might want to try another distro if you run into too many roadblocks(this sort of stuff tends to be hardware-specific). That's why I like SUSE, in my experience it seems the most plug'n'play of the lot.

Cheers,

J.C.

I don't have much experience with Linux but I've tried Ubuntu, Debian and Gentoo but the one that was the easiest was Suse. I recomand it as a starting point.

Thanks everyone, I think I'll give Suse a try. I want to start off with whatever will be easier and more straightforward to set up.

I have a question before I try Suse. On the download page, it looks like Debian 64 bit is the only 64 bit build.

Debian 64-bit Linux (sid)* Linux x86_64 gcc3.4

Windows XP download is Windows i686 which is a 32 bit software, and the
Suse download is Linux i686 gcc3.2 which shares the i686 name.

Does Houdini successfully address more than 4gb memory on suse as a true 64 bit program?

I see that Houdini 9 also doesn't have a suse build yet. I assume that will also come soon though.

Thanks

The Debian x64 builds(both 8.2 and H9) work fine in SUSE 64, I use it every day. SESI doesn't even try to compile for every major Linux distro - it would chew up most of their resources since they do daily builds. Most reasonably contemporary linux distros can run one of the linux compiles on the download page.

Cheers,

J.C.

Which SUSE version are you running? Is it the Enterprise version?

I answered too fast your question. It was easier for me to install Suse than the other distros in 32 bit but with 64 bit I'm not able to run it with Open Suse 10.2 64 bit.

The error I got is: “Segmentation fault” when lauching Houdini. I use the 64 bit version. So I'll ask the same question as Edward to J.C.

François

Francoisd The 64bit linux version of Houdini should run on (almost) any 64 bit linux distribution whether it's an enterprise version or not. So far I tested it on archlinux, gentoo, debian, opensuse and uhm bet I missed one here. You should start houdini with the startup script so it can load it's own libraries. If you still get segmentation faults, give some more information about your hardware and packages installed (maybe you are missing some opengl library?)

Good luck,
Pagefan

houdini is happy with suse 10.2 64bit and i know previous versions have worked very well on ubuntu. of course you need to get 3d drivers enabled (trivial with nvidia, not really painful with ATI).

I will install my video card drivers before trying to run Houdini. I didn't know it was for that reason because on a 32-bit Linux I can run Houdini directly without those drivers.

By the way, is it a notable performance difference between 32-Bit and 64-Bit Linux in Houdini. Where I would expect a gain is while running fluid simulation for example.

Thanks

François

Thanks guys. It's working now since I've installed my nVidia drivers.

I'm still interested to know the performance difference between 32 and 64-bit in the case I have some drivers issues and I hesitate to come back to 32-bit.

François

sorry i shouldnt presume you would need openGL. its not hard to setup these days even for ATI so i just assumed you would

64 bit doesn't mean significant performance increase - it means some efficiencies here and there, but primarily means that a single task can address more memory than 32 bit. There's a lot of misconceptions out there about it. It's the way things are going, it's gotten to the point(even with Windows XP64) where the drivers are becoming more stable and it's actually worth it now, so it's all good. However, it's not about big speed increases.

Cheers,

J.C.