Hey guys.
I know this question pops up from time to time but I was wondering if anyone did tests about Houdini velocity and stability with various linux distros.

I'm using Linux Mint Cinnamon 21.2 and it's fast but apart from this, I only used gnome.

Does anyone can tell me if I'm in the right distro?

Thanks.

nelpiper73
the right distro

Hi,

with confidence I'd answer that there is no such thing as a right distro.

Changing distro can imply quite a lot of steps so I'd only recommend this if you have reasons to stop using a certain distro or you think another one will be better for some reason.

It depend on your goals. If you want to work for a huge studio and say you know Linux you'd maybe have a little easier transition if you go Red Hat, or something similar, since a couple of years ago I read that it is the standard distro for Linux studios that use a certain renderer. If you don't want to pay for a license, but still go that direction and take advantage of the GNU/GPL-license there is the Rocky distro if you dare to try it.

Otherwise I'm using Debian11 with XFCE and do not see any reason to change at the moment. As mentioned, it can be too many tasks involved with that if you have many storage devices and things configured.

My opinion is don't change unless you have a reason for it.

Also a Linux Mint 21.2 aficionado here, and I see no difference with other distros I tested, Mint is just super easy, I just make sure that I have the latest kernel installed, I have kernel 6.1.0-1019-oem installed at the moment, you can check which one you have installed by typing "uname -r" in a terminal, you can install the latest kernel by typing "sudo apt-get install linux-oem-22.04c" in a terminal, other than that, you are good to go with Linux Mint IMHO, but as SWest mentioned, most VFX studios use Red Hat, or you can use AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux if you want the same experience for free !

I'm using Rocky Linux 8.8 and it is incredibly stable.

Thanks guys.

SideFX lists the supported distros:
https://www.sidefx.com/Support/system-requirements/ [www.sidefx.com]

Linux:

Ubuntu 18.04+ LTS (64-bit)
Debian 10.0+ (64-bit)
RHEL 7+ (64-bit)
Fedora 28+ (64-bit)
Open SUSE 15+ (64-bit)
CentOS 7+ (64-bit)
Mint 19.3+ (64-bit)
Pop! 20.04 LTS

Im using popos. It runs smooth and installing was very easy. Pop os is great with Nvidia drivers btw.