Maya on linux? I've tried a few

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Hi,

I'm havin a few weeks of easy time as of now and have started to experiment with Maya on linux. Seems not to be too trivial task at all, first to get 3D acceleration working (ATI FGLX1, I know but it's not a time to change that just yet), then to install Maya. Sure enough, most of this stuff is not exactly on qualification charts.

First I tried SuSE as it has been told to work, version 9.2. Which does not seem to install Maya and says that the rpms are not good. I can't remember the exact error it gave, but the indication was clear that there was something wrong with the rpms (which is not true, I found out). Then I tried Fedora Core 3, which is on as we speak. Maya 6.0 installed quite nicely, with only a warning about a missing /tmp/magic something file. Running it caused a Signal: 11 when the GUI pops up, it has time to blink once or so and then it is gone. I updated to 6.01 which did not mention error of any kind when installing, but caused the Signal 11 as well. I patched to older openmotif rpms that came with Maya, stil lthe same, then replaced the libGLU.so, but no avail.

Now, any ideas? Somebody has got it to work with FC3 and ATI FGLX1? Or somebody has an idea how to install the rpms under SuSE? A lot of questions, but I'm not familiar at all with linux and pulling my hair off soon enough. I would have some old Riva TNT2 that I could pop in and test nvidia drivers if that would help?

2x AMD 2800+, 2Gb, FGLX1 if that is of any help.

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If you are not that familair with linux then why are you trying to install it on unsupported flavors of linux??

Just use Redhat. It's qualified!

http://www.alias.com/eng/support/maya/qual...0\_linux.html#os

According tot he charts you display card is qualified so there should be an apropriate driver for it on Redhat.

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I haven't had an issue installing Alias's Maya on SuSE Linux since version 9.0. If anything I found it much easier to install and maintain software on Novell's distributions (ie: SuSE Linux Pro) than on other Linux distributions. This is in part not only to the standards Novell follows (ie: LSB Certified) but also having YaST which offers a friendly interface similar to Windows XP Control Center. As long as all dependencies are met (See http://www.alias.com/eng/support/maya/qual...are/index.jhtml ) then you shouldn't experience difficulty getting Maya installed and running.

Oh and as for the comment in the other post regarding using a certified Linux distribution, Novell is now part of that list. Unfortunately the problem is this is only listed in the system requirements advertisement page for Maya 6.5 ( http://www.alias.com/eng/products-services...uirements.shtml ) and not updated in the "Qualified Hardware" chart for Linux users. Even though the current pages do cause a little bit of confusion it should be noted that Alias have stated they are still updating the Qualified Hardware charts.

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I guess it is just the question that I don't know how to do such things, and a matter of local support about Linux. Most of the people that could help me know nothing about Maya but do know something about linuxes in general. And I do have a windows to run in the meantime, on another hard drive so I can experiment freely.

I chose SuSE because, in fact, you Dark_Knight have been recommending it, and remember that it has worked out for you. And it is rather recent distribution as well, so I figured out there is not much difference between 9.1 and 9.2 but that 9.2 makes the driver installation for ATI easier. And indeed I got it to work, but tying rpm -i AWCommon...rpm Maya...rpm gives this result:

error: Maya....rpm cannot be installed

On FC3 it installs just fine, so I'm just unaware how to force that installation. And not many of the local linux people seem to be able to help. either distribution is fine for me, really, the trouble I've had so far has been the 3D acceleration and the Maya installation/getting it running. I have some experience about linux, by running a server for some years now, but never about having a desktop.

Thank you for the replies so far, and all help is still welcomed.

5

And just to make things even more fun, I uninstalled ATI drivers and everything seems to work ok, except being slow. Grr, I am certain this will be the last ATI card for a good while, now if I just would be able to try out a Quadro to make sure it works before I go and buy one.

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Uh... did'nt won't to comment on the ATI "problem", cause you seemed to be aware of it.... good it worked out somehow at last :wink:
We've installed maya on suse 9.1 on various machines (dell desktops, no name machines, ibm blades) without problems.... The first time I did it under linux was really funny, cause I was just used to all those fancy windows installers, which ask you alot of things and have nice imagery... on linux I just typed rpm -i myr_maya etc.... hit enter.... the machine thought a bit.... then gave me back my prompt.
I was going like, what? That was it?

nice...

-k

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It is somewhat of a driver issue I begin to gather. Popped in that Riva TNT2 I had lying around and I got it to work at least a bit faster, though the nvidia drivers hang up (TNT2 specific issue with 6629 drivers, my luck as usual) with this card and I needed to use some defaults that came with FC3. And installing older ones is a pain for a newbie like me, with all depencies and such.

Well, there is still somewhat of a performance issue between these two cards, but at least it is not an installation issue anymore. Need to see about that, now that there are all new things coming up (64bit, pci-e and so on) I would not wish to have a new graphics card or a computer just yet.

I was aware of the ATI issues for sure, but the last time I played around it I didn't get the drivers even to install. And even now, there should be _some_ drivers to make it work.

I'm still curious though, how did you all install Maya under Suse? I mean, I still have that issue it says about invalid packets, but sure enough there should be a way around it?

And thanks again for all the help.

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Whether using Maya 6.0 or 6.5 on SuSE Linux Pro 9.1/9.2 or Novell Linux Desktop either of the following will work to install the software.

Installing RPM Packages:
Note: Root (Administrator) password required.

Using YaST: To install with YaST simply download the RPM package to a directory (folder) of your choosing and click on the package. This will open Konqueror with the integrated option to install with YaST. All dependencies are checked during the installation. If the package is corrupted it will not install. If additional files are necessary to run the program then YaST will advise you what files you need if they cannot be located on a disc, hard drive or by an online YaST Source. To install a package listed in your YaST Sources open your YaST Control Center YaST -> Software -> Install and Remove Software found in either your KMenu (KDE Menu) or NMenu (Novell Menu formally called Gnome Menu). Select a package from the list and click the "accept" button. No reboot required.

All RPM based distributions can also use the old Terminal (aka: BASH, Shell) method shown below for installing binary packages compiled for RPM. These include distributions such as SuSE Linux, Mandrake Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Fedora Linux, Yellow Dog Linux, Whitebox Linux and Turbo Linux.

Using a Terminal: Open a Terminal window and log in as root (su, then root password). You need to do this so as to have necessary write access. You'll need to change to the appropriate directory the package is in unless you opened the Terminal from your browser such as Konqueror while already in the directory. To do this type cd then the directory name (example: cd /home/username/documents/my_downloads). Then type rpm -i packagename.rpm. To install multiple packages with the Terminal simple enter like this rpm -i packagename.rpm packagename.rpm packagename.rpm.

Note: Once you exit YaST or the Terminal you will be back in Limited User mode.

Additional help for Linux users can be found here http://www.linuxforum.com/http://www.linuxforum.com/ , an online eLibrary here http://elibrary.fultus.com/technical/index.jsphttp://elibrary.fultus.com/technical/index.jsp and a short list of software ported to Linux and some that run on Wine here http://www.linuxforum.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=53452http://www.linuxforum.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=53452

As for the graphics driver issue if you do decide later to switch to NVIDIA you'll be happy to know the 3D driver auto-installs with the help of YaST by installing the optional package "Download NVIDIA Drivers" found in YOU (YaST Online Update). This package once installed will fetch for NVIDIA drivers and auto-install them for you. You can read more about this in the package description or at the NVIDIA website.

P.S. Let me know if this isn't clear enough for you or if you haven't resolved the installation issue. You should also consider contacting Alias Support since they now officially support SuSE Linux.

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This will be probably my last post in this thread, so rest free. Not because I am giving up, this time, but because for some reason it just worked. Now, it's time to soon swap this HDD again and continue projects with windows till I am sure enough that this works and can take a few weeks of peace to install it on the primary HDD. The rest of this post is just compilation of how things worked out, sort of a memo would I ran into these problems again and to help those who might be in the same situation.

Now, about that Signal 11 error I got with ATI card and what went away when I swapped to TNT2. Well, I happaned to get my hands on GeForce 6800 GT and tried Nvidia drivers which too ran into the same problem. At this points, DK had sent the previous message and I decided to give a shot to SuSE 9.2 once again.

First it looked kind of bad, the same problem occured once more. rpm -Uvh AWCommon... Maya...rpm resulted in the very same problem than before: Error: unable to install Maya...rpm. Given that this is from CD, and works fine under FC3, this was a bit odd especially since the same happens with -i option as well, and this method is stated in Alias docs.

Then, my greatest thanks to DK (again) for pointing out the installation with YaST, which to my surprise works marvelously. No trouble nor errors, except with 6.01 patch that I needed to copy twice. And then another wall, errors because it can not find odd ::lib/:: something from my home directory.

I happened to follow the path to /usr/aw/maya/bin and ran maya from there. Surprise surprise it finally lets me install my license, all the errors disappear and from then on I can run it just fine without the full path. Live and learn, but now it seems it runs well, with no hickups so far given the graphics card of course.

Then some googling about how to change window behaviour, which worked out as well, found a theme that makes the window borders smaller and more "nice". Changed the resolutions and now I just need to see about CinePaint and a few add-ons, but in the end this turned out to be one more SuSE 9.2 succes story and thanks once more for the help to make it happen. Now I just need to convince the rest to change the pipeline here, though not too much is needed to do that.

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i don't recommend to use RedHat 9, thats not the newest OS, and there is no longer support available from redhat (no updates). FedoraCore is not the same !!! It is not released or developted by RedHat themselve, FedoraCore is a new community which continues the work that redhat has stopped with redhat 9. That means Maya 6 is not qualified to run under FedoraCore !!!
Therefore you rather should use SuSE 9.2, its easy to handle and supports new hardware . . . there are better distributions, but these are not easy to handle