Hi all,

Would anyone please give me suggestion on which Linux distro is the best for Houdini 9 Apprentice? Preferably free distros. I tried Fedora Core 5, but it has some installation problem which I didn't quite understand (I'm a noob to Linux too).

Thanks in advance,
Iko

There are several flavors of linux out there. Two popular ones are Ubuntu and Suse.

Ubuntu
www.ubuntu.com
Built on top of Debian, ubuntu is about as user friendly as linux gets. I use it on my laptop. Updating is good. A few quirks but nothing that can't be quickly solved with a quick search on their fourms.
Ubuntu has some quirks compared to standard linux distros.
You will find yourself installing packages after the basic install to get additional features. To help in this area, there is a new specialized distro of Ubuntu called Ubuntu Studio:
http://ubuntustudio.org/ [ubuntustudio.org]


suse
www.novell.com/linux/
Suse is a very well thought out linux distro. Many users on this forum deploy suse in their facilities to great effect. It's installer is very well designed and it tends to run well after install.


Search these forums as this issue has come up many times before.

Jeff! How did you do that, I was just about to write a reply and there you were with your suggestions!

I second Jeff but (there is always a but…) ubuntustudio is mainly sound orientated so you could forget about it and I think fedora 7 has a lot better installer now (all fancy graphics). If I were you I would go for SuSE though. Lot's of folks on the forum here use it so you could get some help from them if you experience houdini/linux issues.


Good luck!

I used Fedora for a long while before moving to Ubuntu just cause I wanted to try something else (talking about my own laptop)…
I'm really fine with Ubuntu now.. its the best “user friendly” Linux I ever used until now… specially since I lost a bit of my old skool nerd patience like I had years ago..

at work we use Fedora…

but I also agree about Suse since there's lot of suse users here that can help…

cheers