faster sims, viewport can handle more without slowdown, hell, Houdini even loads up like 30 seconds faster on linux…

Anyone using Houdini on Windows (xp, vista, windows 7, 32bit, or 64 bit), do yourself a favor and install linux! it might take u a day to get everything setup as you learn how to use it, but once you do, you wont regret it. The prog not even loads faster, but my render and simulation times have decreased significantly

I made a benchmark sim file, and Windows 7 was faster than my XP (because it is 64bit and XP cant use all my ram – on sims that didnt max ram usage, the times were identical)

Ubuntu however completely decimated the times set by windows 7 and xp, regardless of ram usage. There was simply no comparison. It also runs significantly more stable than on windows.

I didn’t go with the 64-bit for two reasons 1) Some non-Fedora-package apps don’t support 64-bit Linux yet and 2) My laptop doesn’t have a 64 bit chip I suppose the latter is the biggest one. You can’t install 32 bit apps on a 64-bit Linux because it uses the LP64 standard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit#64-bit_data_models). Windows uses the LLP64 model so it can run both 32 and 64-bit apps on a 64-bit machine since it differentiates between a long and long long type (long = 32 bit, long long = 64 bit), whereas Linux doesn’t (it’s all 32 or all 64 bit).

Don’t have a cell chip so I suppose I can’t use the distro

I actually thought about MythTV a few years back, but then I got a TIVO since it just worked out of the box. I didn’t want to have to constantly maintain the thing.

Right now I don’t think I’ll get into development since I would rather focus on 3D!

Why use Linux when you have a perfectly good OS on your machine is a tough question. As of right now I don’t see any benefit or deficiency with the exception of some applications being for Windows only (enter Wine). As for making the full switch on all my machines, I don’t think I can make that leap simply because the world runs on Windows, and I need to keep knowing Windows and being able to use all that is made for it. But as to why I went with Linux in the first place, I wanted to understand a Unix based system to increase my understanding of other computing environments. Who knows, it might help down the road.

a few questions:

you mentioned you preferred Fedora because it would install… totally understandable ( i’ve relegated my linux forays to live cd’s only ), but how does it play w/ the apps you like? in regard to Houdini, is it supported by sidefx? even if it isn’t, have you ever come across a “uhhh, what just happened?” moment?

also, is this the 32 bit version of fedora? why not go w/ the 64 bit? can you still install and run 32 bit apps on 64 bit linux?

when will you be writing up your experiences w/ the “sony cell linux distro”? ;o)

how about MythTV? any desire to make an OTA DVR?

will you be looking into tinkering w/ development on the linux platform?

if you can load “wine,” and you’ve already stated you can find equivalent apps for most of what you do, what would you say is holding you back from making a full on switch to linux? this isn’t meant to start a flame war or anything. just curiosity. if we get a pc with windows preinstalled and it works, why switch to something else that also works? unless there is a benefit. and repeating, if the experience of installing the latter is painful, why why why??? go thru the pain?

peace & 42