As you may know I’m just finishing up a 1 year course of Computer Animation/Modeling at college and I’m currently working on my year end demo reel.
Before I started school I decided that I would un-install Linux and work primarily using MS-Windows because that’s what the school would be using and I wanted my system to “just work” as they say.
Well now that the year is over let me tell you that I made a huge mistake.
Here is the list of problems that I’ve had with my computer this year:
First I had WinXP crash into an un-bootable state just a few months after the original install which required a reformat and reinstall, so i decided I’d upgrade to Vista x64 which I had hoped would be more stable.
After installing Vista x64 I had driver issues for several weeks, and then my video card died, and then one of the two internal hard-drive in my computer died (not the OS drive thankfully) and then finally Vista crashed into an un-bootable state just like WinXP, requiring a reformat and reinstall, so I decided to switch back to WinXP which at least has less driver issues.
Finally, to top it all off after reinstalling WinXP and getting my system back up to good working order I was unlucky enough to pick up a Windows Virus which set me back to square one.
So enough is enough I am tired of playing the Windows Game, it is time to reinstall Ubuntu Linux.
The first thing I installed after getting the system setup was of course Maya 2009 x64 and I can tell you it was incredibly fast and easy:
#rpm -ivh –nodeps
That’s all it took, and then I inserted my old windows License file and Maya was good to go.
I did have to change 2 things: the desktop uses the ALT key for some of its hot-keys and so I had to switch this over to the Windows-Logo key so that Maya could use ALT (pan, rotate, etc, etc).
Next I had to edit the xorg.conf file which manages the desktop display and add these lines:
Section “Extension”
Option “Composite” “Disable”
EndSection
Because Xorg tries to do some fancy screen display stuff which Maya doesn’t like so these lines just turn off the Compositing feature of the desktop.
Now I’m using Maya 2009 x64 in Ubuntu Linux, the program loads in under 5 seconds (compared to between 30 to 45 seconds in WinXP) and everything simply works the way it should Ubuntu took care of all my drivers and setup everything else so that it all really does “just work”.
Now, I can finally get back to work and finish my demo reel!
May 27th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
I do not doubt any of your story, but as sysadmin (one of 3) for a med-sized business that has over 175 Windows machines I cant help but suspect that your level of experience/education with Windows played a large role in your unfortunate problem.
I cant really remember the last time I had a Win machine crash on me in such a way that required a format-and-reinstall (which I love to do, btw). Now-a-days it seems like the only cause for a format-and-reinstall is a severe malware infection, which does happen from time to time….and from my experience this is the users fault 100% of the time. I have one Windows machine in my lab that is used daily by me and doesnt have any AV software installed. None at all. It has been up for almost 2 years and has never had an infection.
My company also has 2 AIX Unix servers and several Linux boxes. I am a big fan of most operating systems…there are good and bad with them all.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
I’m definitely not a system admin, I only know what I’ve managed to teach myself as far as system administration goes so I wont deny that I might share some of the blame for what happened. However I should mention that I do build and setup my own computers so I do know a thing or two.
This kind of drives at a larger question: why does it seem that Windows is as easy as it is to crash and get corrupted when used by someone such as myself, but Linux does not?
For example the labs at the school I go to get re-ghosted every term, I’m sure they do that for a reason.
I do understand what you’re saying though, and I appreciate the comment!