Mman

I ended up installing 64bit ubuntu, upgraded it to Ubuntu Studio, and now houdini works like a dream

Well I had the firestarter firewall. Tried to shut it down completely as well as allowing all the traffic, but didn't help. Now I have uninstalled it completely “just to be sure” %)

So I guess I don't have a firewall at all right now. I'm not a linux pro yet, so if you know that linux (ubuntu) has some native firewall embedded, then it's a different story.

BTW: my adsl modem has NAT enabled… Could it have something to do with this…?

Nope. Didn't help- Tried first by just restarting networking service, then by booting.
hkey still takes forever trying to connect license server with no success.

I'm considering installing a whole fresh ubuntu 7.1 and trying houdini on that…