thoughts on Linux?
Hey all,
After seeing where windows is heading(windows 8 didn't impress me) I started seriously thinking about going with linux(mint or elementary OS) something fine for beginners.
Also SteamOS encouraged me a little more to finally try linux.
I'm ok with not having photoshop, I just discovered krita, and it does everything I need(brush engine is freaking sweet).. also Modo seems to run fine on linux.. so I think I got most of my tools.
Do and of you guys actually use linux everyday? I'm curious.
After seeing where windows is heading(windows 8 didn't impress me) I started seriously thinking about going with linux(mint or elementary OS) something fine for beginners.
Also SteamOS encouraged me a little more to finally try linux.
I'm ok with not having photoshop, I just discovered krita, and it does everything I need(brush engine is freaking sweet).. also Modo seems to run fine on linux.. so I think I got most of my tools.
Do and of you guys actually use linux everyday? I'm curious.
Replies
OS wise, you'll have to learn how the system works and it's going to be a bit tough the first few weeks because it's quite different than mac OS and windows, mainly because it's not an all-in-one package. You have the freedom to choose between a _lot_ of path for your system, the first being the distribution you'll use, so you'll sometimes have to get your hands dirty to do things your way.
Also, if you want to give yourself the best chance, you probably have to do some research on the free/open-source software philosophy first and even on GNU & Linux background story so you can have a good understanding of why things are the way they are in GNU/Linux so you don't rage at everything. Remember that RTFM (read the fucking manual) is most of the time the best answer to newbies, even if it's a bit rude
Concerning softwares, except computer graphics, you probably will find a good/very good software for every task you need. I myself would like to have photoshop because I find krita not very mature yet and Gimp is still stuck with 8bits image so that sucks. But if you've checked that all the tools you need is available on Linux, you'll be good
To sum up, it's different, very different. You'll have to read some doc and learn a few things but give it a proper chance and maybe you'll stick with it.
Good luck
i think it's actually more straightforward to use than windows these days which is the only OS where i put in effort to make it look and feel like a version from 10 years ago just to not go crazy.
I'm already a bit familiar with how things work(been playing with some distros in virtual box).
then I finally decided to dual boot linux alongside win7, and things were fine until I rebooted my pc, it kept rebooting itself and sometimes didn't even boot to win.. I know there are some issues with nvidia drivers and stuff.. but I should probably deal with these problems on another forum.
I love how simply you can install stuff with just a few commands, unlike clicking 'next' like an idiot :poly142:
will definitely give it another try.
Then you could never write to the root user without giving a password, and it seemed really easy to destroy your system completely by linking and unlinking things. So, that meant you had to do daily backups to another hdd with clonezilla. And if your clonezilla backup mysteriously failed even though it indicated that it had worked and you needed it and you have to build your system from scratch?? Oh my :poly136:
Its also hard to install things that were meant to install on one distro but you're on another.
I went back to windows full time and I'm a lot happier now. I wish I could get most of that linux time back.
For instance Zbrush is working really quite well : http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=1152
Photoshop also seems to do fine with a silver rating : http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=17
My impression of Linux is that when things work they work great, but when things don't work then you're gonna lose a lot of time trying to figure out how to make them work, and unfortunately some things will never work right.
I think it will be a challenge to get an effective fully functional setup for 3d game art on Linux. Modo finally getting ported over to Linux is a really great step forward in that regard actually. The other challenge will be finding a decent game engine to show your work in. IIRC most of the mainstream engines are Windows only except for Unity which is Windows/Mac. I think I've seen some YouTube videos of someone getting Unity running on Ubuntu. I suppose you could always try running missing apps through WINE though in my experience many things just don't work. There's also VMWare if you've got a beefy enough system. I remember someone mentioning running Max on a Mac through VMWare and being pretty happy with that setup so I figure it would be the same on Linux.
Personally I'm waiting on SteamOS. In the meantime I was thinking about giving Slackware a try in order to learn Linux better and provide me with a stable development (read: programming) environment (just waiting for the final release of Slackware 14.1 which should out really soon...). I'd like to give Arch Linux a try too but the impression I get is that I'd spend more time fixing update breakages then actually getting work done, maybe Manjaro would be a better choice... I dunno... Anyway, good luck!
And as Ben mentioned, if things go wrong, they go terribly wrong
GIMP has a bit of a learning curve, just like Blender used to have. It is very powerful though. They are working on 16 bit image support I believe, IIRC it will be in the next version.
I run a few things under Wine (the windows not-an-emulator) such as a model converter (Noesis), a flowgraph editor, and XNormal.
I have a Windows dual boot and atm I do music sequencing under Windows because it's just more user friendly (setting up the sound stuff like Alsa and Jack under Linux is a bit of a hassle, but some people are doing it, so it probably does work). I also have UDK, Crytek Sandbox, a lot of games etc. installed under Windows because that turned out to work better.
It all depends on what you need to do. Blender runs A-OK under Linux and Mypaint works extremely well for painting with a tablet (better then GIMP.)
I prefer Linux to Windows for just about everything, in my personal opinion it's a system that allows the user to break a lot more stuff a lot easier, but it also doesn't try to hold your hand and be your nanny, and I prefer that. If you know Linux well, you'll be grateful for the lack of forced handholding and irritating popup messages.
It all depends. If you use Max or Maya and Zbrush etc, then use Windows or MacOS. It's very simple. Like always, use what works for you.
Modern Linux distributions are very easy to install alongside a Windows on the same harddisk, and it's free, so by all means try it and see if it's for you. The only thing that sucks is having to reboot in the middle of your workflow, so if that turns out to be a problem in anyone's particular workflow, then I'd just use Windows.
I believe Photoshop runs under Wine. There is a database of apps that work with it under http://appdb.winehq.org/ that might be helpful.
So, I use both Linux and Windows and it works for me. I prefer to use Linux whenever possible though. But I'm also free to chose my poison because I'm independent, it might not be that simple for a lot of other people.
Ubuntu and Mint really are pretty good these days, it won't hurt trying them. Valve wouldn't do its Linux thing if it was a horrible OS, either.
Edit: Slackware and things like Gentoo are really not supposed to be newcomer friendly at all - Ubuntu and Mint are my suggestions. I also heard that Unity works under Linux now.
also, xNormal 4 is being developped for Linux/Mac/Windows so it should be available on linux in the near future
Unity 4.0 works on Linux as well I think.
Overall, it may not be fully ready for AAA game production but the future looks promising
Was probably me, BUT... I'm doing this for personal tech artsy stuff. I'm not doing this because I love OS X so much - it's mostly so I can more dynamically use the limited space on my SSD and so that I can use the intel card for most of the time and save some battery (and not burn a hole in my pants).
For my needs it's good enough, but it won't get you any DX11 goodness or anything really advanced. Running games under VMware is so-so. Definitely much better to run them natively. I think running UDK with a full blown level with all graphical bells and whistles might also not be a good thing to do in VMware.
Dual boot is also annoying. Some bookmarks are here, some are there, accessing drives of the other OS can be annoying. Then sometimes stuff is not on the shared drive. Too much hassle. I have Win 8 with Metro off. Best OS I had so far. I can forgive the small annoyances it still has, because every OS has small annoyances.
I like Linux and I use it at work as host for our web based apps (CentOS), but some aspects are really more suited for tinkering than getting things done quickly. Here and there I'm in a tinkery/nerdy mood and contemplate putting it on the desktop, but then I remember all the editing of files in nano or gedit, setting up everything with Wine (I hate dual boot!) and then I settle for "maybe later".
One area I personally think Linux needs work is the file system. One look and you know it was designed for software developers and not users. There's no intuitive structure, no semantic design. It's a maze of ambiguous directories and files. Where are my applications stored? I don't know. Where can I save an application that doesn't require an installation? You got me bub. It makes no sense. The confusion is compounded with directories that have identical names to higher level directories; you forget where you are.
To be honest, I've had just as many issues with Windows that I've had with Linux. At least when you install Linux, everything works right out of the box. Windows isn't ready to go after a fresh install. You have to chase down the driver discs that come with your hardware before you can even think about internet access. All Linux drivers are a repository search away if you don't already have them with the Linux install. Internet access in Linux is very plug and play. It didn't used to be that way though, dialup was a pain because it was hard to find a modem that wasn't a DSP based modem, which couldn't function without Windows. Broadband fixed that because Linux is a wunderkind at networking out of the box (save for a few Wifi cards).
So honestly, the problem with Linux is Windows. A lot of effort was put into making everyone dependent on Microsoft products. They go to a lot of trouble to defy standards so that they can become the standard. I've been adopting and abandoning Linux for over 10 years and it's finally getting to the point that it has enough support to start rethinking the idea of being Windows only. The only thing that keeps me on Windows is games. Once Linux gains more game developer support as a platform, I'll have little use for Windows.
The Unity 4.0 runtime works on Linux. The full editing suite does not. So if you are a Unity developer, you can't switch over to Linux entirely. This is part of the reason why I still keep a few Windows machines around. So long as there remains software that is only for Windows, I will have to maintain at least one Windows box. But every year there seems to be fewer and fewer reasons. And I STILL don't have a reason to upgrade to Windows 8. Microsoft is going to have Valve nipping at their heels soon enough.
Only thing i still use it for, is servers now, my webserver is centOS, and i got my old computer running openSuSE that i use for extra storage and sometimes offload rendering tasks too.
to the OP if your considering this just because of windows8, why they hell aren't you just sticking with 7?
I'd say if you love Win 7 then Win 8 is for you - don't believe MS's fucked up marketing and all the media FUD. You turn Metro off and Win 8 is pretty much a leaner and less bloated Win 7 with some nifty extra features - compatibility is top notch with Win 7.
If you're afraid that going from 7 to means you're going to change a few behaviors then going to Linux will be a massive surprise
There is a learning curve for sure but for all the issues I've had there's usually been a lot of good information to find through google.
Most Windows programs can be run through Wine, although some with more hassle than others. PlayOnLinux allows you to switch between multiple versions of Wine.
I just got bored of win7 and wanted to try something new, and linux is clearly more fun when it comes to user experience.
But yes, I'll probably stick to win7 for now.
When I do this the newness usually wears down and I return to my old OS. But it might be different for you. At least there's no danger in this method.
Recently, I have been installing and playing with various distributions on a 10-year-old beater box for the past few days as a test. Main goal was to revive my wife's old Dell laptop that has become an interminable mess of old XP bloat and brokeness. It's so slow now, that it's just gathering dust. So the Linux revival has been an interesting test. Just want something portable that can run GTKRadiant, Blender and something that is good for a little Python scriting.
Had not been keeping up with all the various distros over the years and now that I've started down this path, it's pretty crazy what's available. I could see this becoming an obsession. Way too many options now for an ADD guy like me. Gave Unbuntu 13.10 a try, then Mepis and finally I've settled on Linux Mint 15 Olivia. Mint has all that's good about Unbuntu and less of what's bad. I dig Cinammon for LM, but will probably go with xfce on the laptop because it's less demanding. Speaking of look and feel, I really dug Enlightenment back in the day and it's cool to give E a spin again now that E17 is out. Kind of overwhelming with all the customization available.
And yeah, it's cool that there is now a Linux-native version of Modo. I don't have 701, but will eventually, so I'm looking forward to testing that. Also, there is a Linux-native version of 3D-Coat, too, to go along with the version of Maya native to Linux. I like Gimp and Inkscape a lot, but it would be nice to have a native Photoshop for Linux. Maybe one day.
Biggest issue is wonky driver support, especially for nvidia products. Unbuntu, in particular, has required some specific attention in order to get video running properly. Right out the box with a fresh install, my system would lock up completely until I did a hard reboot. After a little research, I was able to fix the problem and now everything is very stable. Just something to watch out for, I guess. Everything else has been really solid and easy to use.
Greetings!!
I've been meaning to post in your thread to give my two cents worth of opinion.
I have been using Linux OSes often and they are more efficient in development process of many products, networking, etc. There is however an issue of communication between the OSes; Linux to Linux and Linux to Windows. For example any sort of file that was made in windows cant be accessed in any other OSes of different genre that's where the SAN (Storage area network) and NAS (Network attached storage; allows you to dynamically allocate the storage volumes / logical volumes to save your data,) comes in to play.
Mainly Linux is used as a command prompt terminal for networking and can be used for any development process should you choose to use one.
I would recommend; Ubuntu desktop and Server 13.04 - 13.10 (recent one.) on Vbox or VMware workstations before fully deciding to go for Linux.
Currently I am using Samba (I think) server for Ubuntu that works as a SAN agent and have Ubuntu (UI), Red Hat 6 (command line prompt) and Cent OS (command line prompt,) Installed on VMware workstation 9.
For CG however I would suggest sticking with windows or Mac OS.
Kind regards
As much as Linux is now starting to gain more popularity, I'm not sure we'll see it taking over games development, there's just too many windows based software, tools and technology. Though more people who using mac based environments now, and it's interesting to see more people run on Linux.
However, in the film/vfx world, its a different story, Linux is the preferred OS environment. There are some windows/mac stuff around for software that isn't in Linux, for example Zbrush etc, but the main and core environment is Linux.
running linux overall has been nothing but an improvement, i would never want to go back to running windows.
No offence but even know I prefer the Linux as a desktop OS. How is running zb in wine with worse performance improvement, than running a bunch of other apps via a VM, that nullifies the point of using a different OS a improvement?
passerby, sure its not ideal. but zbrush in wine is really not that bad, i can do most everything i want. the only thing i have a problem with is there is a long startup time, and decimation master doesn't work. also working in a vm is much more preferable to having to reboot your computer into another OS if you want to get something done. also of note, if more people started to use zbrush under wine and linux I am pretty sure the wine dev team would make sure that it runs on par with zbrush in windows, time will heal almost all bugs.
3d development is only a part of the reason i own a computer. the amount of things possible to do in linux and the stability and security of linux are also big reasons to use it despite the fact that not everything runs natively.
Running Zbrush and other windows apps through wine/virtualbox is currently in the Good Enough category, and soon it will be under the Runs on par with windows category. If it ever gets native support it will probably run better then on windows. Imo its important to support the growth of something rather then simply expecting everything to work perfectly from the get go.