Linux Distro

Pipelines
1

Hello all,

I’m trying to decide what Linux distro I should get into. I would consider myself a complete Linux noob, though I’ve played briefly with Ubuntu a couple times. I’m mainly interesting in running Maya 2014/15, and possibly Nuke and MARI. As a beginner, I would obviously prefer something that’s not going to be too much of a headache to get Maya running on. From what I understand I should go with a RHEL based distro like Centos/Stella/Fedora. Then I have also found a thread on cgtalk about a Debian based distro called Crunchbang, which sounds quite interesting. Currently, CentOS seems like it might be the best option for me. But then I’m left wondering which version to choose? Autodesk’s official requirements recommend CentOS 6.2, but I have heard of people using 6.3 and 6.5 as well. One last thing I’m wondering is what most animation and vfx studios are using (of the ones who have built there pipeline around Linux). I’m guessing for the most part it would be RHEL.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

2

Why unless your setting up servers or render farms it is easier to just use windows.

3

What’s your goal?
If you want to become familiar with Linux, pick one and install it in a VM.
If you want to focus on creating art/code/etc then pick a system that you know, so you spend less time administrating and more time creating.
If you’re concerned about costs, figure out your total-cost-of-ownership. This means you don’t just have to look at the price label of the box. You also have to put a price on each hour of your own working time and then see how many hours you’re likely spending on administering, fixing and learning. If you are already familiar with Windows, and have good Windows software habits (i.e. don’t install any junk from the internet), then Windows will most likely come out better.

Apart from that, CentOS seems to be a popular Linux choice with plenty of support available. We run some of our web services and databases on CentOS. But not any actual workstations.