hi, i just installed openSUSE 10.3 (64-bit). and i installed the correct 64-bit version of houdini 9. i am using an AMD64 Athlon X2 4400+, and an NVidia Geforce 7800GT, and i have the drivers installed properly. (glxgears runs steady at 16000fps).

now i know that i installed it correctly because i have done it in ubuntu before, and it worked fine. here is the problem after running “source houdini_setup” and then “houdini”, the splash screen comes up as normal, then it disapears, and sometimes i see the window box “connecting to license server” and then it closes and houdini never launches, and sometime it just closes right after the splash, and does even get to connecting window..

i tried starting the liscence server by running “/etc/init.d/sesinetd start”. i get the following output in the terminal:
/etc/init.d/sesinetd: line 163: log_daemon_msg: command not found
/etc/init.d/sesinetd: line 165: log_end_msg: command not found

when i try running “/etc/init.d/sesinetd stop”. i get the following output:
/etc/init.d/sesinetd: line 172: log_daemon_msg: command not found
/etc/init.d/sesinetd: line 174: log_end_msg: command not found

so i think it has to do with the license server.. i have tried re-installing houdini. and still same problem persists..

thanks in advance everyone. i would love to get houdini working on openSUSE.. if its not possible.. then what would be the best operating system to run.. i am also planning on running maya and realflow (i know they are rpm based and dont support ubuntu). does fedora work better than openSUSE?

There's a known problem, just surfacing now, with Houdini on SUSE 10.3. Try turning off multithreading(HOUDINI_ENABLE_THREADED_UI=0) for now and see if that works. Wolfwood has discovered H9 doesn't work on recent versions of both SUSE and Slackware with threading, while H8 does. There's been fine tuning in the threading areas of the kernel plus changes in Houdini in 9 recently and I'll bet something's happening in that area. We're hoping SESI will get a chance to look at it soon. From what I've been reading, and Wolfwood's initial impressions, 10.3 is a real winner and software management has had a great makeover.

Cheers,

J.C.

hmm, where exactly do i type “HOUDINI_ENABLE_THREADED_UI=0”.. and like i said i am almost certain it has to do with the license server.. because if i try running hkey. all i get is the loading window (connecting to license server..) and it never actually opens the dialogue for installing a commercial or non-commercial license..

thanks again.

Just type it into the shell.

If you are using bash:

export HOUDINI_ENABLE_THREADED_UI=0

Then start houdini/hkey/etc.

Repost from the support forum:


Minor Issue:

SuSE 10.2 & SuSE 10.3
houdini-9.0.719-linux_i686_gcc3.4
houdini-9.0.719-linux_i686_gcc4.1
houdini-9.0.741-linux_x86_64_gcc4.1

The sesinetd script in /etc/rc.d/ tries to make use of predefined functions which don't exist in the file they source.

# Load LSB init functions
if ; then
. /lib/lsb/init-functions


In the newer SuSE distros init-functions don't have log_daemon_msg() defined. To work around this problem I just changed the above to

if ; then
. /lib/lsb/init-functions


in order to force it to use the internally defined functions instead.



Major Issue:

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=172&page=viewtopic&t=9538 [sidefx.com]
I originally thought this was a Slackware related issue and just shrugged and gave up. However this problem has cropped up again on a completely different machine with SuSE 10.3. Same exact symptoms.

First machine to have this problem was a Dell Precision M60 Laptop with a Quadro Go 1000FX running a fresh Slackware 12 (32-bit) install with
houdini-9.0.719-linux_i686_gcc3.4.tar.gz
houdini-9.0.719-linux_i686_gcc4.1.tar.gz

The second machine to run into this is a Dell XPS 710 with a GeForce 8800 GTX running a fresh openSuSE 10.3 (64-bit) install with
houdini-9.0.741-linux_x86_64_gcc4.1.tar.gz

When I first came across this I blamed Slackware, now that I've run across this again I'm blaming Houdini and a “cutting-edge” kernel. I'm more than happy to help track down the problem however I'll require some help since I've exhausted all my hacks/workarounds.

alright, so i tried putting _NULL in after init-functions in the sesinetd script like you said. and now i don't get the “log_daemon_msg: command not found” error message when i try to start/stop the license server. but rather it fails to stop the license server (starting works afaik). it outputs the following when i run “/etc/init.d/sesinetd stop”:
Stopping Houdini License server FAILED

if i try starting it (/etc/init.d/sesinetd start), then it just outputs normally:
Starting Houdini License server.

but my problem still persists and it wont let me get go past this screen when i try running “houdini” or “hkey”.

usually after its done connecting it should open a new dialog to install non-commercial or commercial licenses.. but i am unable to get to that dialog. it just closes and i cant go further.

i also tried running “export HOUDINI_ENABLE_THREADED_UI=0 ”. and it didnt make any difference.

any suggestions? if i cant get this working, what would you suggest? fedora or ubuntu? im also planning on running maya and realflow. i heard they run great in openSUSE 64-bit thats why i want to get this setup. thanks for the replies and help.

I don't think this is license server related.

One way to test this is to start up a session of hscript/hbatch. This will need a license but doesn't require any OpenGL/UI. So if hscript works it will confirm that the license server is indeed working and is serving up licenses.

when i run ‘hscript’ or ‘hbatch’ i get the same output in the terminal:

hbatch Version 9.0.725 (Compiled on 09/20/07)
No licenses could be found to run this application.
Please check for a valid license server host

getting houdini working is becoming such a headache. i would hate to switch to windows. but its becoming the only clear solution. any suggestions?

I ran into a similar issue just the other day. What do you have in your /etc/hosts file?

If you have something like:
127.0.0.1 localhost <your hostname>

It will create some problems…support told me to change it to something like this:
127.0.0.1 localhost
<your real ip> <your hostname>

The explanation was the client needs to be on the same subnet as the license server instead of being mapped to the loopback address.

Hope it helps.

- Hai

Also, you're running a distro that's one week old with a brand spanking newly discovered bug. You have plenty of linux options that work perfectly fine and are an alternative to windows. It's up to you if you feel you absolutely must run the bleeding edge.

J.C.

thanks. so what is your recommended solution to keeping up-to-date with software and technologies, but also having a stable cg/vfx workstation? an Enterprise linux? (from Redhat or Novell)

i would be using this system both as a workstation and desktop. i would prefer to have one partition/os for both in conjunction.. but for desktop i enjoy having bleeding-edge technology (XGL, compiz-fusion, newest distros, etc.. although im not even sure if houdini works while compiz is running?) and it seems that it might be a good idea to have one partition with a stable enterprise linux (for vfx work). and another partition with a community maintaned version of the distro (desktop, etc..).

let me know what you think is most suitable.. my only draw to windows is that i will have editing software in windows… video/audio editing is almost non-existent in linux (the OSS alternatives are garbage right now). other than that there is no reason why i would use windows. its slow and hogs all my resources. (dont even get me started with vista).. i mean the school i am planning on attending has a houdini/nuke certification course i might be taking. and both those applications run great on linux. i have also heard great things about maya and realflow in a linux environment.

now. i know i may get very biased opinions on the topic of linux distros.. but what do you think is a safe approach for me to get a good desktop/workstation setup?

thanks again for all the help so far, i appreciate it very much guys.

If you were happy with SUSE then you can run 10.2 - I use it on my workstation. Lots of ppl like Unbuntu and use it - I don't personally because it has it's own idiosyncrasies with security that make it “different” than other linux distros - thus that's a recipe for exclusion for me since I want homogeneous behaviour with our systems. I could go on and give my opinion on Fedora, but then it's just my opinion - as you say, it's easy to get very biased on this topic. In the end all the ones I mentioned are more or less the same target market, just different takes on it, so you'll need to try it to know if you like it.

IMHO you don't need an expensive enterprise edition of anything for a workstation. We've only purchased enterprise linux cuts for central servers, etc.

J.C.

Tarkus
but for desktop i enjoy having bleeding-edge technology (XGL, compiz-fusion, newest distros, etc.. although im not even sure if houdini works while compiz is running?) and it seems that it might be a good idea to have one partition with a stable enterprise linux (for vfx work). and another partition with a community maintaned version of the distro (desktop, etc..).

Hey Tarkus, that's sort of what I'm doing at the moment. Two small root partitions for two different distros and one larger home partition that they share. For my desktop distro I have PCLinuxOS setup. For running Houdini I wanted to run openSUSE 10.3, but it's a bit too soon I guess. I'll be downgrading to 10.2 for now.

btw, Houdini does not work well with accellerated desktops (compiz, beryl, KDE's translucency/shadow stuff). With H8 I got a bunch of UI glitches, and with H9 the UI is just impossibly slow.

I now have the same problem with houdini on Unbuntu 64bit, it worked fine the other day…….. at this rate Im going to give up ….

Diagnostic Output:
==================
If you are having licensing problems, please save this information and email it
to support@sidefx.com.

License Administrator output:
=============================
Generated on: Sat Oct 13 00:53:56 2007
Local host name: circusmonkey
Local server code: dca2ac00
Local ip address: 192.168.0.2
Number of servers: 1
License server name: circusmonkey (circusmonkey)
License server server code: dca2ac00
Server ip address: 192.168.0.2
License server is running: Yes
May read licenses from server: Yes
Has SERVER license: No
License server version: 9.0.743
May modify server from this machine: Yes
Redundant server keys: 1
Name Code Redundant Connected Transmission OK
—- —- ——— ——— —————
circusmonkey dca2ac00 no - -
License Administrator version: 9.0.743
Http proxy host: (none)
Can retrieve http://license.sidefx.com/index.php: [license.sidefx.com] Yes

Installed licenses:
LicID Platform Product Ver Avail Expiry
—– ——– ——- — —– ——
c4026ea2 Generic Houdini-Master-NonCommercial 9.0 0/0 08-nov-2007
+.+.+.+ circusmonkey (license known to: circusmonkey)
65d70e6d Generic Render-NonCommercial 9.0 0/0 08-nov-2007
+.+.+.+ circusmonkey (license known to: circusmonkey)

sesictrl -i output:
===================
—– SERVER circusmonkey ——–

*** WARNING *** - No valid server lines found

Lic c4026ea2: 0 “Houdini-Master-NonCommercial 9.0” Generic 08-nov-2007 +.+.+.+ circusmonkey

Lic 65d70e6d: 0 “Render-NonCommercial 9.0” Generic 08-nov-2007 +.+.+.+ circusmonkey

Serv circusmonkey dca2ac00
redundant: no
connected: no
transmission successful: no



hserver -l output:
==================
Hostname: circusmonkey
Uptime: 0:46:43
License Server: circusmonkey
Server Version: sesinetd9.0.743
Version: Houdini9.0.743
ReadAccess: +.+.+.*
WriteAccess: +.+.+.*

1330 of 2011 Mb available
CPU Usage: 1% load
0 active tasks (4 slots)



licenses file:
==============
## Side Effects Software License File
#
# For license information, please contact:
# Side Effects Software Inc.
# 123 Front St. West, Suite 1401
# Toronto, Ontario, Canada
# M2J 2M2
# licensemanager@sidefx.com
# http://www.sidefx.com [sidefx.com]
#
# NOTE: This file may be modified by the licensee
#

# Key installed 21:39:16 10/10/07
SERVER circusmonkey dca2ac00 85ddf2a5ee330b01d53a670f426a642ff055e7b022fcf

# Key installed 21:39:18 10/10/07
LICENSE Generic Render-NonCommercial 9.0 1 08-nov-2007 +.+.+.+ circusmonkey \
65d70e6d EcvB@AQacF754L08gYmJdk7YS41W9n1q+a8ARXBbw3AfyNTbKr7pEE3

# Key installed 21:39:19 10/10/07
LICENSE Generic Houdini-Master-NonCommercial 9.0 1 08-nov-2007 +.+.+.+ \
circusmonkey c4026ea2 \
y@p5Rx7KgMhV2xqmdZBXnBw4alVeM4Mw4Si2do6S518MafCk7aBs6l3

Tarkus
thanks in advance everyone. i would love to get houdini working on openSUSE.. if its not possible.. then what would be the best operating system to run.. i am also planning on running maya and realflow (i know they are rpm based and dont support ubuntu). does fedora work better than openSUSE?

You can use a program called alien (apt-get install csh alien) to change .rpm to Debian format. If you search the Ubuntu forums there's a How To on installing Maya 7.0, but it can be used for Maya 8+ on Ubuntu 64.

Also, both Houdini 8 & 9 apprentice work fine for me in Ubuntu 64, but everyone's system is different.

Circus Monkey, please try restarting your license server.
In a shell, run
sudo /etc/init.d/sesinetd restart
And then try launching Houdini.
If this doesn't work, email us at support@sidefx.com

Wolfwood
Repost from the support forum:
Minor Issue:

SuSE 10.2 & SuSE 10.3
houdini-9.0.719-linux_i686_gcc3.4
houdini-9.0.719-linux_i686_gcc4.1
houdini-9.0.741-linux_x86_64_gcc4.1

The sesinetd script in /etc/rc.d/ tries to make use of predefined functions which don't exist in the file they source.

# Load LSB init functions
if ; then
. /lib/lsb/init-functions


In the newer SuSE distros init-functions don't have log_daemon_msg() defined. To work around this problem I just changed the above to

if ; then
. /lib/lsb/init-functions


in order to force it to use the internally defined functions instead.

I'd love to get this working, but I don't have access to a SuSE 10.2 or 10.3 machine at the moment. If somebody is feeling adventurous, could they apply the following patch to the sesinetd startup script and try it out.


diff /etc/init.d/sesinetd.old /etc/init.d/sesinetd
— /etc/init.d/sesinetd.old
+++ /etc/init.d/sesinetd
@@ -44,8 +44,10 @@ DEBUG=0 # Set to 1 to debug this script
# Load LSB init functions
if ; then
. /lib/lsb/init-functions
-else
- # Provide our own
+fi
+
+# Provide our own versions if not defined already
+if ! type pidofproc > /dev/null 2>&1; then
pidofproc() {
pid=`ps -C “$1” | tail -1 | awk ‘{print $1}’`
if ; then
@@ -55,9 +57,15 @@ else
return 1
fi
}
+fi
+
+if ! type log_daemon_msg > /dev/null 2>&1; then
log_daemon_msg() {
echo -n $1
}
+fi
+
+if ! type log_end_msg > /dev/null 2>&1; then
log_end_msg() {
if ; then
echo “.”
@@ -65,8 +73,11 @@ else
echo “ FAILED”
fi
}
+fi
+
+if ! type log_action_msg > /dev/null 2>&1; then
log_action_msg() {
- echo $1
+ echo “$@.”
}
fi

catlee
I'd love to get this working, but I don't have access to a SuSE 10.2 or 10.3 machine at the moment. If somebody is feeling adventurous, could they apply the following patch to the sesinetd startup script and try it out.

Seemed to work.

Running the patch:
revelanetc/init.d # patch –verbose -u sesinetd sesinetd.diff
Hmm… Looks like a unified diff to me…
The text leading up to this was:
————————–
|diff /etc/init.d/sesinetd.old /etc/init.d/sesinetd
|— /etc/init.d/sesinetd.old
|+++ /etc/init.d/sesinetd
————————–
Patching file sesinetd using Plan A…
Hunk #1 succeeded at 44.
Hunk #2 succeeded at 57.
Hunk #3 succeeded at 73 with fuzz 2.
done

Running sesinetd
revelanetc/init.d/rc5.d # ./S06sesinetd start
Starting Houdini License server.
revelanetc/init.d/rc5.d #

Wolfwood

catlee
I'd love to get this working, but I don't have access to a SuSE 10.2 or 10.3 machine at the moment. If somebody is feeling adventurous, could they apply the following patch to the sesinetd startup script and try it out.

Seemed to work.

Merci!

has anyone found a fix to this issue? i really want to get setup properly with a stable distro running my VFX packages. should i install ubuntu 7.10 that came out yesterday? or should i try out fedora 7?? (wait for fedora 8?)

also another thing. i am having a hard time deciding if i should try KDE/Qt.. i have always used Gnome/GTK, as KDE seems ugly imo and not as well polished as gnome can be. but Qt seems interesting.. any suggestions here? does one play better with houdini/realflow than the other?

this is really disapointing that my experieince setting up my work environment in linux has been such a nightmare.

thanks in advance guys. would really like to get this setup working.