Linux Native LW --> Why Not?

[Kionel]

Hey, folks --

Having performed yet another Ubuntu install for someone this past weekend, I found myself lamenting the fact that I can't perform an "apt-get" for the appropriate LW binaries and finally make the leap myself. The simple fact is, the only application that's keeping me in the Windows environment is Lightwave.

Of course, I can run LW on my wife's iMac, but I do see a performance hit when I do. Additionally, it's a Mac, which means it's pricey. Linux? Good hardware? Not so much.

So I bring this discussion to the table here, once again: Why don't we have a Linux-native Lightwave binary?

I offer the floor to those who know much more than I.

Tony

[Mikala]

I can only agree on wanting it myself!

[Nadesico]

There won't ever been an LW native binary. I spoke to some Newtek reps when they were in Australia for a conference a few years ago, I actually asked them about this and their response was "which version?". Then they got into details about how most versions are different and they can't pick one or two to build binaries for, they'd need to do the lot and that it would take forever.

Your simplest LW solution is using VMWare or WINE (I recommend VMWare personally, rather then emulating, you actually run a FULL virtual machine with as much or as little grunt as you want to allocate from your actual PC.

[hemimotorz]

There won't ever been an LW native binary. I spoke to some Newtek reps when they were in Australia for a conference a few years ago, I actually asked them about this and their response was "which version?". Then they got into details about how most versions are different and they can't pick one or two to build binaries for, they'd need to do the lot and that it would take forever.

Your simplest LW solution is using VMWare or WINE (I recommend VMWare personally, rather then emulating, you actually run a FULL virtual machine with as much or as little grunt as you want to allocate from your actual PC.

Sad truth.... I liked linux and really digged the open source aspect. Maya had a linux version... Or used to right? Atleast, I think they did...

[BillS]

There is a linux version of XSI. I don't know about Maya.

[Kionel]

I've actually considered building an Ubuntu box with the Beryl WM and installing VMWare on it to see what kind of performance I'd get from Linux. Unfortunately, I suspect that I will see a hit in render times, no matter what, which kind of defeats the purpose.

That being said, as a former UNIX Admin whose first exposure to Linux was Slackware 2.1 when I setup an ISP back in 1995, the answer to "which version" is simple: Ubuntu.

I've worked with Red Hat, Slackware, SuSe, Debian, and I've even built a distro by hand. (I don't recommend that.) Bar none, Ubuntu is the first distro that feels like a one-stop shop solution that anyone could use and enjoy with very little adjustment. I don't think this distro will go the way of Red Hat (cha-ching), or the others. Heck, Wal-Mart was just selling $200.00 PCs with Ubuntu on them as simple "Internet PCs". They sold out, and for most people, having a kick-butt browser, photo editor (via GIMP), media player, heck, you name it, it's got it will be all the PC that they'll ever need. And hey! If they know a tech savvy friend, they can even get a fair number of games (including World of Warcraft) running on it with very little trouble via WINE.

Okay...gotta stop myself. I'm clearly a big Ubuntu fan. Must take deep breath...

;)

[hemimotorz]

I've been out of the linux game too long. Last distro I tried was suse. Kinda like the yast idea. Really simple to use and has the 64-bit envi with a 32-bit sub system. Haven't really sat down and tried playing with it anymore. Couldn't get lightwave running :P. I've heard about ubuntu, I really should get back into it.

[rustythe1]

interesting thread, i have a ps3 which you may or may not know runs linux, so they would make for a quite powerfull cheap render farm! i didnt realise you could get emulation softwear for linux, spose it would only be natral though,

[Josh2481]

I've actually considered building an Ubuntu box with the Beryl WM and installing VMWare on it to see what kind of performance I'd get from Linux. Unfortunately, I suspect that I will see a hit in render times, no matter what, which kind of defeats the purpose.

That being said, as a former UNIX Admin whose first exposure to Linux was Slackware 2.1 when I setup an ISP back in 1995, the answer to "which version" is simple: Ubuntu.

I've worked with Red Hat, Slackware, SuSe, Debian, and I've even built a distro by hand. (I don't recommend that.) Bar none, Ubuntu is the first distro that feels like a one-stop shop solution that anyone could use and enjoy with very little adjustment. I don't think this distro will go the way of Red Hat (cha-ching), or the others. Heck, Wal-Mart was just selling $200.00 PCs with Ubuntu on them as simple "Internet PCs". They sold out, and for most people, having a kick-butt browser, photo editor (via GIMP), media player, heck, you name it, it's got it will be all the PC that they'll ever need. And hey! If they know a tech savvy friend, they can even get a fair number of games (including World of Warcraft) running on it with very little trouble via WINE.

Okay...gotta stop myself. I'm clearly a big Ubuntu fan. Must take deep breath...

;)

I took my old p4 IBM(ya I know) and setup Ubuntu on it. I don't really do much with it but it makes that old 1.4ghz seem faster then my 2.4ghz running xp. Would be excited to see more companies push for linux support.

[JackN]

I took my old p4 IBM(ya I know) and setup Ubuntu on it. I don't really do much with it but it makes that old 1.4ghz seem faster then my 2.4ghz running xp. Would be excited to see more companies push for linux support.

Now that just makes me laugh (and kinda sad too...).

The highest Pentium I have is a P III-800, and my "newest" machine is an Athlon XP 1800+ running at 1.5 Ghz.

:(

Concerning Ubuntu, I highly agree that that is the best distro across the board out there, and that could very well be the Candidate for a Linux Native!

I have heard the phrase "Never" before... ;)

One can only hope.

[janus]

There is a linux version of XSI. I don't know about Maya.

Maya has a cool hybrid DVD that has two files structures on it, pop it in under Windows and you get the Windows install. Pop it in under Ubuntu and you get the Linux version :-)

[hemimotorz]

I thought I remember seeing something like that. Been awhile since I've maya or linux. I am getting old.

[Maph]

There is a linux version of XSI. I don't know about Maya.

I do believe Maya runs under linux. As with most common used apps out there actually.
XSI, Houdini, Blender, Maya (not sure about Max though). Lightwave seems to be the only one that missed the boat... :hmph:

[PuG]

Well latest Wine does run Lightwave to some degree, but their are some issues - but Lightwave under Cedega does work, (its certainly more usable).

If Newtek showed some support, Cedega would then consider working with Lightwave and to develop the emulation software where possible. - or with need a community fund raise.

I think Wine still suffers from the OpenGL child window issue? which is fixable I believe but your reliant an already stretched free community. When I last used LW 8.5 on Cedega it worked, but I think had a few config issues? and some of the extra plugins would lock.

Theirs also Cross Over Office, I have tried LW with it, but can't remember the results.

(Been using Ubuntu for several years now, by far the best and most supported distro)

[jtjumper]

There won't ever been an LW native binary. I spoke to some Newtek reps when they were in Australia for a conference a few years ago, I actually asked them about this and their response was "which version?". Then they got into details about how most versions are different and they can't pick one or two to build binaries for, they'd need to do the lot and that it would take forever.

Your simplest LW solution is using VMWare or WINE (I recommend VMWare personally, rather then emulating, you actually run a FULL virtual machine with as much or as little grunt as you want to allocate from your actual PC.
Wouldn't VirtualBox be even better, since does not cost money.

[Nadesico]

Wouldn't VirtualBox be even better, since does not cost money.

Possibly, but i've never used VirtualBox before, so i'm only quoting from experience.

[jtjumper]

Possibly, but i've never used VirtualBox before, so i'm only quoting from experience.
For me, VirtualBox worked very well on Windows and Opensuse. I mostly use it run other distributions of Linux. I tried Win4BSD, but I couldn't get it to finish installing. :(

[Crook]

I know this is necroposting somewhat, but I recently got a dell laptop with vista, but I installed Ubuntu 9.04 on it and I'm really happy with the overall performance and would like to make this my main OS on the laptop, with a view to moving to Ubuntu full time.

It's all fine, apart from LW. I can't get it to run in linux properly. I don't want to run it via virtualbox as that separates the virtualised system from the linux system too much. I'd much prefer it to run via wine, and have it link to my main OS NTFS drive where all my LW stuff is located.

The problem is the LW panels look either black, or corrupted. Has anyone had any experience with this, and solved it?

[Rigel]

Please note that Foundation 3D has no objections to bringing an old thread back up to the top.

[Zippy]

I did manage to get 9.0 installed under wine on Ubuntu last year. Only problem was none of the displays would show, just black. Rendering worked, all the panels worked but no displays.

[Crook]

I did manage to get 9.0 installed under wine on Ubuntu last year. Only problem was none of the displays would show, just black. Rendering worked, all the panels worked but no displays.

It seems really easy to get it going apart from the panels problem, just run the exe with wine. I'm wondering if it's an OGL problem, but being a linux newbie I've literally no idea where to start diagnosing the GL problem. I know that GL works on the system (glxgears works at any rate)

[JackN]

You guys are bumping heads with the OGL support for the ports and stuff...

Don't have a solution for you at the moment, I plan on trying out an Ubuntu/VMWare on my Laptop in the near future, after I get done with this temporary work project on Vista/Access 2007. I'll be making a Recovery DVD, then clean slate with Ubuntu.

I did manage to get 9.0 installed under wine on Ubuntu last year. Only problem was none of the displays would show, just black. Rendering worked, all the panels worked but no displays.

I know this is necroposting somewhat, but I recently got a dell laptop with vista, but I installed Ubuntu 9.04 on it and I'm really happy with the overall performance and would like to make this my main OS on the laptop, with a view to moving to Ubuntu full time.

It's all fine, apart from LW. I can't get it to run in linux properly. I don't want to run it via virtualbox as that separates the virtualised system from the linux system too much. I'd much prefer it to run via wine, and have it link to my main OS NTFS drive where all my LW stuff is located.

The problem is the LW panels look either black, or corrupted. Has anyone had any experience with this, and solved it?

[Mikala]

Isn't LW CORE supposed to have a planned Linux version of it when it ships?
Yup :)

[Crook]

I'm still not clear on CORE, it all seems like it could be good, or a disaster. Interesting if it runs on all platforms though.

[MooseDog]

lw and wine just don't get along together. it's just a dead end for you. virtualbox's newest version however does support hardware graphics acceleration, and i can tell you that lw works just fine within. short of "sudo apt-get install lightwave" (along with the proper ppa of course) it's the best ya got!

[Crook]

It's a shame that wine won't run it, as it's very close to doing it, just bad gl panels it seems. Running and installing an entire VM image just to run LW isn't so far from rebooting into windows to run it there natively.

[BillS]

I've heard that this works but have never seen it.
http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxlinux/

[Flashfire]

About LW Core.... just watched some of the videos at newtek and have to say its interesting how it looks like a blending of modo, LW and Maya... if this is true, I may just end up being a one application user again. I really like how it looks - and its quite cool to me how it is more Maya-like (Attribute Editor, Outliner, History Stack, etc).

[JackN]

Here's the current reported compatibility for Lightwave...

http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/browse/company/?company_sort%5Bcompany_name%5D=ASC;company_curPos =1400;company_id=355

I've heard that this works but have never seen it.
http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxlinux/

[Zippy]

according to winehq 9.3 will install and run but in demo mode. Thus we'd need to find a way for the dongle to work under wine or to use a *cough*cracked*cough* version.

[Crook]

I've been investigating using virtualbox and found that it's not that bad overall. An XP install as a guest within a host of Ubuntu runs quite smoothly and LW runs just fine from the XP guest VM. With a shared folder in my /home/ folder, I can easily keep all my projects and rendered images on the main system rather than the VM image. With the additions, the mouse is free floating between the host and guest and fullscreens well so it looks like I'm just working on XP.

So I'm pretty happy with it all so far, all the things I want Ubuntu to do has worked out. MAME installed with little problem, got my joystick working and galaxians is still pretty much perfect. My media server was a few hours of terminal work and installs of php5, apache2 and the like, but I got it going in the end, and now vbox allows me to use LW. The vast majority of tasks I use a PC for are now covered, and I think each of the remaining ones are so infrequent I can reboot this machine into vista if I need to.

[Zippy]

Awsome! I'll have to try that once my machine is clean enough to install Ubuntu again.

[MooseDog]

I've been investigating using virtualbox and found that it's not that bad overall. An XP install as a guest within a host of Ubuntu runs quite smoothly and LW runs just fine from the XP guest VM. With a shared folder in my /home/ folder, I can easily keep all my projects and rendered images on the main system rather than the VM image. With the additions, the mouse is free floating between the host and guest and fullscreens well so it looks like I'm just working on XP.

So I'm pretty happy with it all so far, all the things I want Ubuntu to do has worked out. MAME installed with little problem, got my joystick working and galaxians is still pretty much perfect. My media server was a few hours of terminal work and installs of php5, apache2 and the like, but I got it going in the end, and now vbox allows me to use LW. The vast majority of tasks I use a PC for are now covered, and I think each of the remaining ones are so infrequent I can reboot this machine into vista if I need to.

:tu:. very cool report!

[Starbase1]

I'm about to start looking very seriously at multiple active operating system, instead of multiple boot. As the new beast has tons of memory and disk space, it should be very practical.

I'm experimenting with a mix of VMware and VirtualBox. VMware has some very nice aspects, and there are loads of ready made meachiones out there, but I'm finding Virtual Box much nicer in other regards, in partioculr the way the implement USB, and the very handy ability tio mount ISO images directly.

When I get a little bit further on, and have more to report, expect a new thread!

Oh, and parently CORE is initially aimed at Red Hat, which seems a slightly odd choice given the diominance of Ubuntu and it's derivatives...

[CAClark]

Based on the crashtastic experiences I had with Linux Maya running Fedora Core while I was at Framestore (it was no better than or worse than windows), I honestly don't see the appeal. I never founfd Linux to be better than windows, indeed it was more frastrating at times.

Each to their own of course, I'm just saying.

Cheers!

[SteveMoody]

Ubuntu is good from a desktop point of view but it does update on a fairly quick basis and they are often using the latest and not nessesaraly the most stable versions of xorg, gnome, etc... From a support point of view it does make sense for newtek to recommend an os that doesn't change that quickly and is well supported.

I'll probably try core on linux at some point but most of the time i'll be using windows.

[Meurig]

Based on the crashtastic experiences I had with Linux Maya running Fedora Core while I was at Framestore (it was no better than or worse than windows), I honestly don't see the appeal. I never founfd Linux to be better than windows, indeed it was more frastrating at times.

Each to their own of course, I'm just saying.

Cheers!

Processing power, enough said!

Using maya on my work machine I can use my full 16 gig of ram without it hanging or being bogged down by the barrel loads of worthless shit that Windows forces you to load in order to use it.

[Starbase1]

Processing power, enough said!

Using maya on my work machine I can use my full 16 gig of ram without it hanging or being bogged down by the barrel loads of worthless shit that Windows forces you to load in order to use it.

I've noticed with my shiny new machine, 12 Gb of DDR3 memory, XP64, it issues warnings and starts mucking about enlarging the swap file even when it has nowhere near used all the physical, let alone virtual memory...

I think it will be very interesting to see if LW Core under Linux can actually start using large amounts of memory to handle big polygon counts...

[Crook]

I have to chime in and say that Ubuntu at least (not tried any other distro) is fast on my laptop, faster than Vista is for the same tasks, although it's not really all that different. What has impressed me is some of the software. Amarok as a music player/ itunes replacement is amazing, the lyrics applet alone is great.

Wine is pretty useful to help a transition, but I feel that software developers are their own enemy. Why not make GIMP into a photoshop clone? Because it's NOT photoshop is the general answer. If the main windows apps were emulated to a greater degree, there would be no reason not to change over and one to change over: it's all free.

Although, it's STILL not ready for a general user. It's close, but not there yet. Some simple software has taken quite an effort to install, which could have been easier. I'm not afraid of experimentation and reading how-to's, so it's fine for me. I think this will be easier in the future and will come in time, and when it does, wow will windows be blown away.

[Meurig]

I have to chime in and say that Ubuntu at least (not tried any other distro) is fast on my laptop, faster than Vista is for the same tasks, although it's not really all that different. What has impressed me is some of the software. Amarok as a music player/ itunes replacement is amazing, the lyrics applet alone is great.

Ergh I can't stand amarok. I only use it because it's marginally less buggy and crashes only a little less often than XMMS which would be a much more appealing alternative if it wasn't so unstable.

But then I suppose some people like iTunes, though **** knows why....


Sound in general is really dodgy on the linux systems at work. With stupid problems ranging from two different apps trying - and failing - to use sound drivers at the same time resulting in crashes, to the general crappiness of the music apps. But then linux is hardly friendly for your average music-playing photo-sharing PC demographic anyway, you need a solid reason to use it.

[Crook]

I'll go with Kirk on the reason to use it: Because it's there. :)

[Starbase1]

Ergh I can't stand amarok. I only use it because it's marginally less buggy and crashes only a little less often than XMMS which would be a much more appealing alternative if it wasn't so unstable.

But then I suppose some people like iTunes, though **** knows why....


Sound in general is really dodgy on the linux systems at work. With stupid problems ranging from two different apps trying - and failing - to use sound drivers at the same time resulting in crashes, to the general crappiness of the music apps. But then linux is hardly friendly for your average music-playing photo-sharing PC demographic anyway, you need a solid reason to use it.

I'm a little surprised by that - I thought the sound progs and facilities in Ubuntu Studio were rather impressive, though perhaps I was just lucky... Issues come up fairly often in the Ubuntu Studio mailling list so it's clearly not perfect, (ha!), but it could be worth looking there, for the fixes...

I'm not sure how similar the setup is in the Studio version, but if you're not using it already, it could well be worth a look as it is pre optimised for multimedia compared to the main distro.

[Crook]

As far as I've read, sound seems to be the poorest aspect of Ubuntu. I know that my master sound on this dell inspiron 1545 has to be 100% of I get no sound, but I can use the sound level within amarok, so no problem really.

[Starbase1]

OK, take a look at this.

I am currently using CubeDesktop to get Linux style multiple screens in Windows, and running Ubuntu in a VMware virtual machine in desktop 2. Host OS is Windows XP 64.

[Crook]

That's an interesting transitional stage, but I've tried VM's before and honestly, there's nothing linux can do that windows can't, so why fire up the VM? I think I'm happier having a dual boot with ubuntu/vista, but ubuntu is now my default.

[Starbase1]

honestly, there's nothing linux can do that windows can't

No.

There is plenty that Linux can do that windos cannot, and plenty that windows does I wish it would not!

There's also plenty that Linux does better.


I love the multiple desktop approach.
I love being able to install without "please close down all programs" (not that it is possible), or 'reboot now'...
I love being able to install to a USB key and boot off it.
I love being able to backup by simply copying files, wthout jumping through copy protection hoops.
Related, I can't make or find a legal windows based VM appliance because of OS licencing.
I love being able to upgrade my hardware without wondering if the OEM copy of the OS will decide I need to pay again for windows.
Once I have a VM, I know I can move it to another machine with everything intact.
Memory management is massively better under every linux I have tried than XP, (Vista is better at this aspect, but worse in so many others it is not a contender)
Switching from Windows to Ubuntu on a netbook feels like a serious hardware upgrade, it is SO much more responsive!
And along similar lines, try running a currently available version of Windows on desktop hardware more than a couple of years old - Linux will run happily on ten year old hardware, and deliver better performance than Vista on a dual core laptop with 2 Gb memory, in my personal experience.This is not just abstract stuff - real world in the day job, we needed a wiki, and got the project off the ground with a MediaWiki VM, running on a fairly ancient desktop, which was also being used for day-to-day work, It was operational in minutes, could be easily exported to a non-vm platform for live running once we had all the data in, and everything configured.

MS Sharepoint had hideous costs, major hardware requirements, and much less functionality.

And to bring this back to Lightwave, think about this:

With most Linux variants being free to distribute, there is nothing to stop the final version of Core, once ready to ship, distributing complete with the exact OS configuration it was tested and built on. Maybe even with a VM version, that will run on anything from a lowly 10 year old Wintel PC, to a Sun E25K, or if even that is not enough horsepower for you, on an IBM mainframe. All from a USB stick on a keyring, the exact byte-for-byte code and OS.

As long as Microsoft stop the OS from being copied and working, they cannot match that, and you will see Satan skating to Bolero before you see them do that.

Microsoft see virtualisation as a copy protection issue.

[Crook]

Those are all good plusses for linux, but in the context of my reply, when talking about a main installation of Windows and then using a virtual machine of Ubuntu, those reasons fall away as you still have Windows in the background. With a main installation of windows, there is little reason to open a virtual machine of Ubuntu - windows will do all that you need to do there and then. If you really want the multiple desktops and better memory management etc, then install linux as your main OS.

I think VM's of Ubuntu within Windows have their uses, but to provide extra functionality isn't really one of them. I think we should all think about moving to linux as our main OS at some point over the next 5 years because it will run on pretty much any computer we have, is completely open and pretty great at the moment. Give it 5 years and linux should be on a par with windows or superior in terms of basic user adoption. The linux community still is unwilling to grasp the idea that if lots of people use linux, it makes it easier for the whole community.

[Starbase1]

For me at the moment its a bit of a learning thing, both in terms getting my head around the various Linuxes, and also in terms of a better understanding of virtualisation.

I expect to move to windows VM's running under a Linux at some point in the not too distant future, I don't see an Open Source graphics prog to match Photoshop, even elements, in the near future.

[Crook]

I've read that the gimp can rival PS, but also that it's difficult to get a handle on. Those who ask for Gimp to be made more PS like, in fact the apparently defunct gimpshop has tried to do this, are generally told that gimp isn't PS, and you should shut up.

Most go with PS working under wine it seems, and it apparently works well with wine.

I wish programs would be easier to install on any platform. In this day and age it shouldn't be so hard to achieve. Just write one for windows, linux or mac.

[Starbase1]

I've read that the gimp can rival PS, but also that it's difficult to get a handle on. Those who ask for Gimp to be made more PS like, in fact the apparently defunct gimpshop has tried to do this, are generally told that gimp isn't PS, and you should shut up.

Most go with PS working under wine it seems, and it apparently works well with wine.

I wish programs would be easier to install on any platform. In this day and age it shouldn't be so hard to achieve. Just write one for windows, linux or mac.

Well, Gimp does have some strengths, (I find it easier for numeric input, and it works very well with extremely large images. Also it's very good at supporting obscure academic and scientific formats).

But last time I checked there were two absolute killers.

No photoshop filter compatability
Only 8 bits per channel.I believe that core components are being worked on to fix the latter.

And ease of install is a real reason why I want to get into VM's. I really like the idea of installing the software to something as portable and cross platform as a VM.

[Crook]

VM's are pretty cool to use too. I'm amazed how fast XP boots in a VM, but also that you don't need to boot but just shutdown the state is a real plus.