Linux Vs. Windows

[robertmurray66]

Would those of you in the know please give your views on the pros & cons of running Maya on these systems? Does Linux' "Wine" plugin work with Photoshop, Painter, etc.? Is Linux susceptible to viruses? Any Tutorials on how to set up a dual boot system?
TIA,
Bob

[fortner_mike]

Don't know about maya on linux, but the else is simple.

All os are vulnerable to some viruses, but since usually linux is used by more experienced users, it's said that linux is safer than windows (well that's probably true), however if you are experienced user, even on windows, you can easily get rid of some nasty infections that slip through your antivirus (hopefully you have something good). Dual boot....basically there are two methods that i'v heard off. One has something to do with creating all sorts of system backups, bootable floppy drives and all that jazz(never tried)...which is a waste of time...nothing will ever go wrong if you do it right, and if you really want to you can just copy important files to dvd or something, then just go and install your other operating system, and you should get an option to either replace your current system or install separately (tried this). If you install separately you have dual boot basically. When you start up you can choose what operating system you want to use. Just have several partitions instead of only C:. Some people say that if you have only C: you will have problems and also its more comfortable to have two partitions for two os.

[thanasis_scifi]

Why do you worry about viruses? It is simple, dont plug the pc to the net, use an old one for that job. If you're into cg you probably have one or two old ones laying around. If you dont want to do that, and feel compelled to plug your best computer to the net, just change your habits and no harm can come from viruses, just dont download anything you find and use a decent antivirus.

As for Linux, if you are not an experienced user and dont have any friends that already use Linux to help you with the installation, you probably won't even install the drivers for your graphics card. It just has a different way of doing things and it's easier if you have someone to give you the initial hints to get you started. If you try to install linux in a partition and dont pay attention to the installation popups you might even format your C drive and kiss your windows bye bye.

But, because of the way Linux works and handles memory, I have heard it can support heavier scenes in Maya. I crashed my my maya in windows with a 2 million poly scene in shaded mode in my 2 GB ram machine, while Linux can handle 4 million poly scenes with 2 gigs or ram, so I read somewhere. Linux is generally much more stable.

Trouble is, if you want to go the Linux way, you have to sit down and find every little piece of driver for every little piece of hardware you have on your machine. You also have to decide what version of linux you will use.

Why do you want to switch to linux anyway? Because of the performance or the viruses?

[joojaa]

QUOTE(thanasis @ 07/04/07, 03:28 PM) [snapback]269188[/snapback]
Why do you worry about viruses?

Well just a question when last did a virus sneak past your up to date virus scanner?

QUOTE
Trouble is, if you want to go the Linux way, you have to sit down and find every little piece of driver for every little piece of hardware you have on your machine. You also have to decide what version of linux you will use.

And worse of all when you snatll a software you end up sloshing knee deep in dependencies. To install this you need thi thi this and this software and library, which incidenttaly off course never is compatible with this, this and this library you have installed.

look it like this, windows is restrictive stupidified and lame. And linux is anything between Dispair to Bliss. Its a totaly different way of thinking, so the stereotype goes like this:

• Mac users arent supposed to think for themselves (ok osX pushed the boundary but then see its abased on *nix so under the no thinking hood is a linuxl ike environment)
• Windows users are supposed to knwo something of computers, however microsoft keeps adding we know better features al the time. (windows is trying to become mac WITHOUT the under hood)
• and then theres the linux way, your supposed to know, and be a pro about quite much. Much like maya Howveer there are distros that just work but read below.

Mstly however this is a trade off slider, if you make it nice and easy you loose out on the benefits of complex and flexible.

Example: If you compare the computational needs of you and your mom (well i was about to say me and my mom but you dont know her), you will soon realize theres not much stuff that you use she needs. And quite little what she uses that you need (well in my case a bit extreme because i cant for earth of me see any extended use for microsoft word, i can do everything i can in word but better manually as long as i don't need to network with word users. So thank god Microsoft for the xml format few more tools and i don't need even then)

[robertmurray66]

Performance is the main concern. I was unaware of the memory benefits of Maya/Linux but it makes sense because I believe the linux version of Maya is roughly half the file size of that for Windows. I'm no programmer but it seems likely to me that Maya has to jump through a lot of hoops to work with Windows. I too have heard that Linux is more stable. I'm not all that "worried" about viruses, just weighing the pros & cons. Last week Windows crashed big time and when I brought it back up Maya's batch render was gone. I tried restoring the system to that of an earlier date via Windows itself-didn't solve the problem. Fortunately I also have "System Suite" which has it's own system restore and after running it I got batch render back. If that hadn't worked I was looking at a complete reinstall of Windows. What got to me was the fact that Windows' own system restore didn't work. The time reverted to was the same in both cases.
If I do try a dual boot Linux will be on it's own hard drive.
Thanks.

[joojaa]

QUOTE(RobertMurra @ 07/04/07, 11:03 PM) [snapback]269204[/snapback]
I too have heard that Linux is more stable.

Well theres is a big misconception about this, a linux workstation isn't noticeably more stable than windows in similar setup comparison. However when you rip of certain parts of linux it becomes stable, same happens to windows too but its harder to do.

So it can be stabler, yes , but it might not, heres too many factors to consider. But people who are mainly using linux are often much more experienced or more enlightened computer users so they also tend to build from better parts see below.

Anway for me its hard to say neither my dualboot computers has crashed on either system in years, unexpectedly (they do crash whan i do stupid things yes but then im takeing a calculated risk)
QUOTE
Last week Windows crashed big time and when I brought it back up Maya's batch render was gone.

Well thing is any system can do that if you crash them. Crashes are partly hardwares reason and partly drivers. You cant avoid hardware failure and drivers vary in quality depending on the manufacturer/programmer. The most affecting factor is that you buy quality hardware and upgrade only parts you have problems with.

this is also why you do regular backups no matter what the system, is imperative. Thast why ou have raid drives on servers for example, and do tape backups.

PS: Remember linux is not jsut one thing its best thought of as MANY differently configured operating systems