It's very annoy especially about the geometry part.
After I do something like change modes(OBJ->ROP->OBJ),
or do somthing like preview render, maximize help window, etc.
The icons of both tool bar and network pane are missing, also geometry OGL render disappear after I move camera.

System spec below:
HP xw9300 with Quardo FX1400
Dual Opteron 252, 2G RAM
nVidia driver version 1.0.7676
OS: Ubuntu 5.10
Gcc: 3.4.5
glibc: 2.3.5
Houdini: houdini-8.0.383-linux_rhEL4


See screenshot taken below.
I've already tried with HOUDINI_OGL_DBL_BUFFER_FIX.
And I have nvidia CIOverlay option on in xorg.conf.

Your problem may be due to a corrupt desktop. Do you find the problem persists across different desktops If so then you might have a corrupt desktop.

It is recommended if you encounter strange problems with your desktop layouts that you either move the entire $HOME/houdini8.0 directory to say $HOME/houdini8.0.bak where the 8.0 is the current major and minor release that you are currently experiencing the problems in.

A more finer action is to actually just remove all the desktop files in $HOME/houdini8.0/desktop. All the files with the .desk or .desk.nosave extensions.

Yet another way to do this is to use the Settings > Desktop… manager and delete your desktops after switching away from the offending desk then relaunch Houdini.

Thanks to everyone who reply my post first, although your solution didnt correct my problem, but narrows down the possible of what cause this all.

It's my custom compiled kernel 2.6.13-4, when I change back to stock kernel of Ubuntu 5.10, everything runs so smooth, that I even tried it 3~4 times with rebooting and switch kernels.(and smesh Fn keys like hell XD)

Finally I would like to try 2.6.14, the newest one but failed to boot, so I just use the last linux-tree provide by Ubuntu archives(which is 2.6.12-xx).

Things turns out quite smoothly using 2.6.12 version of kernel, maybe nVidia should try to keep up with new kernels?(I pull out useless modules which enabled with default settings,turn on SMP, change arch,etc..etc..).

Anyway, a big THANK to you guys!!!
I can finally start playing with new houdini 8~~~YEAH~~~

Best,
Ren-Wei Yang

Thank-you for the detailed explanation of your problem and solution.


-jeff

Do this,
remove that directory..

Remake the directory try again..

I was using 7.10 of Ubuntu and somehow I got the same result
and all I did was remove the directory (which was chown'd and
chgrp'd to root), I think this happened when I first tried to run
Houdini as root and it put the directory in my home account..
For whatever reason, if this happens..

Remove the directory, recreate it as the user who will run Houdini and chmod the directory to 777..

Don't reinstall Ubuntu or try something more drastic until you've hit this one..

:D :D :D :D :D