Hi Everybody….

Our studio is currently working on Windows.
We want to shift to Linux. We are a small studio with 20 people. I don't know anything about Linux. I don't know which distribution will work fine for us. Fedora, Ubuntu, Cent-Os, Suse ??? Is there any performance difference for graphics softwares like Houdini or Maya???? How Flexible and easy or difficult is each distribution???
People say Linux is much flexible for writing tools for a graphic studio. If so, what types of tools can be built??? Which Scripting language will be good? Is there any tool-set available for graphic studio?? Is there any software for Asset Management , like Alienbrain on windows???

Plz share your suggestions….


——–iamjaideep80
Jaideep Khadilkar
TD, Sciclone Motion Graphics

Ubuntu is great!

We are slowly switching to linux. I have personally dumped windows of my notebook and got Ubuntu there.

One thing I can advise is hire some linux professional. It is simple to get a workstation with linux and everything working under it. The studio is totally different thing. It has to be organized right the first time, and you won't have to worry about it for most of the time (unlike windows) But you DO have to understand what you're doing. In our case it is a full-time sys.admin + another person who sets everything up for the first time. You DO have to know things like NAS, SAN, SMB etc. to get everything going. Plus you still would have to have windows machenes being able to access you network. In our case Photoshop people are on windows (though it would be much easier with Macs I guess.)

Plus you might be interested to read this : http://forums.odforce.net/index.php?showtopic=5027 [forums.odforce.net]

Hi Jaideep,

if you switch to Linux keep than here are my 50cents
- you either need some Linux enthusiast, hire one or buy a distribution with support (RedHat).
- learn, learn, learn and read manuals. There are a lot of live discs for Linux. Try them and get a bit comfortable with Linux.
- For a list of all (most) Linux distributions, check www.distrowatch.com. Some Linux distro's are extremely flexible but require more knowledge/maintainance. Some Linux distro's are very easy but not flexible at all.
- for Linux on renderfarms you don't want any desktop distribution but you want something really small (like Damn Small Linux) and a recompiled kernel so you use as little resources as possible. To install it you probably need a Linux enthusiast (see above)
- you should make a list of all programs you use in your work pipeline. Do they run on windows and Linux like Houdini or are they windows only? You might end up with some Windows workstations and a lot of Linux workstations. Don't forget the computer(program)s and applications of staff and administration. (Alienbrain seems to work on Linux too, see their website)
- How is Sidefx with support for non supported versions of Linux? Do they back off or do they still offer some form of support. You could end up by choosing between RHEL4 or debian sarge.
- For workstations you don't want a windowmanager/desktop that eats all cpu-cycles so no fancy Beryll 3D effects and no KDE. There are some very lightweight windowmanagers (twm )) which are good enough to start Houdini and isn't that all you need? You mentioned Maya but i take that as a joke…
- Performance difference, probably the same as on windows, some applications are programmed better than others and use your computers resources better. There are differences between Linux distribution when it comes to speed/effiency but i wouldn't bother with them for the moment. Not until you are comfortable with your new OS.
- As dsedov said organization is everything. (for windows, Linux or any other OS)
- You can build whatever tool you like on Linux with different GUI toolkits like QT (which can also be ported to windows), OpenGL and GTK, in almost whatever scripting language you desire, d, smalltalk ruby, python, perl, c, mono (.NET). What scripting language you want to use is what your developers are comfortable with.

hope there are some tips there for you…if it is a bit incoherent it's because i had too much coffee and am really craving for sleep and whiskey…or whiskey and sleep…

SESI has a pretty good attitude about the non-supported Linux distros. I don't think I've run a supported distro for many, many years, since coming to loathe Redhat. They'll usually try and help you hunt down the problem. For the most part, only the cutting edge or very unusual special-interest distro will cause problems anyway. Just like running Vista, you shouldn't be running the latest and greatest of any Linux distro in production(unless you're an enthusiast, in which case nothing will stop you ).

Having said that, I'm not trying to encourage running Bizzaroid Linux - just that if you stick with RH, SUSE, Ubuntu, Debian and that lot it's unlikely you'll have troubles.

Cheers,

J.C.

HI…..

Thank u very much for ur support.
I am testing Ubuntu first. I know that Shifting one desktop to Linux And Shifting the whole studio to Linux is far far different. We have time for that. But before hiring an administrator , I thought asking this forum is better.


–iamjaideep80
Jaideep Khadilkar
TD, Sciclone Motion Graphics.

I'd also suggest you give PCLinuxOS a spin. I think you would be pleasantly surprised after trying one of the *buntus. I've been using Kubuntu 6.10 for several months now and can't wait to get rid of it… :x
Just waiting for the newest release of PCLOS to go final.

here is an article published ere yesterday about migrating to Linux http//itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3663871

There are a lot more articles than just this one of course.