best configuration fot blender and yafray

i will be purchasing a new computer and i am wondering what i should do if i want to continue running with blender and yafray. does blender run well on vista? can i get yaf(a)ray to run on vista at all? should i get just vista and find another solution for GI?
should i get XP instead? or, what i was thinking, should i get vista and put 32-bit linux on a partition and run my art stuff on the linux? is linux hard to install/use? i am of above/average computer skillz. is it a pain creating a partition and using it regularily? i apologize for the numerous questions but this will help alot to sort things out before i purchase. thank you.

hi

YafaRay runs dirty fast in linux platforms and with Nehalem.
http://www.yafray.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1536

i may do a linux partition, im just afraid of destroying my vista, i probably wont be able to afford a vista disc with my pc purchase, and i guess there is a strong possibility that by partitioning and installing linux alongside vista, that i could destroy the vista operating system, hence the need for the vista disc. what GI renderer will work with blender and vista? maybe indigo? also is it safe to render for 8 hours all the time on a laptop without it burning out the fan, i would like portability but i dont want to burn out my laptop right away. im trying to decide between a laptop and a desktop. if you guys could provide a list of pro’s and con’s between laptops and desktops with blender, that would be awesome. thank you in advance.

Last year i got a laptop with Vista on it, and since i can’t really stand Windows (for personal reasons) I immediately shoved my debian install cd in it. It will simply allow you to downsize the Windows’ partition, and will install linux on the freed space. There might be something destroyed, and that is Windows own boot mechanism stored in the MBR and usually a small partition in front of the actual Vista partition. This is not a problem at all; Microsoft wants to dominate your computer and thus create some kind of small OS to boot, but this is all one big pile of bs. You can simply use linux’s boot mechanism called GRUB to boot Vista.

So basically, there is nothing to be afraid of. GRUB should find Vista & it should all work. I don’t have a Vista cd either.

About the pro’s and con’s with blender on laptops vs desktops, I only have 1 thing to say: the laptop’s interfaces are less flow-stimulating. As in, there is no actual Numpad on the lapop, so you can’t switch view sides quickly. It has annoyed me enough to buy an external numpad (for about $10) and a little external mouse. Now I can blender happily on both laptop and desktop ;}

Good luck!

is debian much harder to install/use than ubuntu? should i send for a cd or download? i have broadband. could ubuntu be installed pretty trouble free also? will the graphics card in a laptop be lacking, i have trouble when a mesh is complex or subsurfaced to much, manipulateing the viewport in blender takes way too long, and doing anything takes too long, tabing into edit mode can 2 or 3 seconds after i press the button, imagine if everything you did in blender took 2 seconds to start, including moving objects. everything in the viewport and editing is dependant on openGL right? and openGL is dependant, solely on the graphics card, right? will a new, 400 or 500 dollar laptop let me maniputate pretty complex meshes and scenes without slowing down much? or should i get a 400 dollar desktop and later get a 256+ mb graphics card later? the slowdown while editing and the fan burning out from rendering for 8+ hours all the time are the only two concerns i have with getting a laptop. if those wont be a problem with that price range i would rather have a laptop. one last question if i decide to not get linux, what renderer would be a good replacement for yaf(a)ray, maybe indigo? its a lot of questions, i know, but i am always broke and i need to make every dollar count, i will be making a decision this saturday. thanks for the help everyone.

You don’t really need an expensive graphics card to work with Blender, unless you are into really sophisticated and avanced stuff. I have done really big scenes with a six years old 64 Ram geforce 3. It is well known that Blender is quite capable with high poly counts. Any Nvidia 9xxx series DDR2 will do.

YafaRay can be used on Vista as well. My point is that people is getting better results with Linux.

Ubuntu is a daughter (son?) of Debian, difference being that Ubuntu has been made ready for the mainstream, so I’d say its a bit easier to use Ubuntu. If you have broadband, just download the cd image and burn it if you have a cd - it’s the easiest way to go, but they also have ways to install without a cd.
I dont know how complex your models are, but my $500 laptop from last year could handle quite enough. Just be sure that ‘Optimal Draw’ is enabled on the subsurf, and don’t use too many levels for editing ;]
Also I’ve been rendering with my laptop for hours, it didn’t hurt him.
Finally, i’ve installed Luxrender last week - I have no experience at all with Indigo but it’s pretty neat. Takes a little time to get used to all it’s render modes, but the light setup is very easy. To use you would download Luxrender itself and a export script called Luxblend :: http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/index.php/Download#LuxBlend_.28for_Blender.29
If you decide to go for a laptop, be sure to check it’s readiness with linux! (for videocards most nVidia en ATI chipsets work flawlessly, a lot of laptop manufacturers are opening up to linux driver devs, but you dont want to be surprised ;])

thanks for all the help guys. im thinking of a desktop, reasons: i can always reconfigure a desktop to suit my needs later should the need arise. also i need that numpad, plus i dont go anywhere anyways, so the portability is less desireable. i will attempt to run everything on vista, maybe change renderers or use blenders new photonmapping, i will also get the ubuntu cd image and try installing it on my older computer and run it for a while and see how i like it. also i may turn my desktop into a LAN rig if i need portability, that way i can still have the option of upgrading our retrofitting it without space or compatability issues. also if anyone has a special consideration regarding my new computer purchase, please let me know. thanks again.

well, i got my computer. 2.4 ghz dualcore, 64bit vista home premium, 4gb ddr2memory. with a 512mb integrated nvidia g100 graphics card. it is a smaller computer case, so upgrading may be an issue later, but i may not have to worry for quite a while. it gets a little hot on top, i think it is the video card that gets so hot, should they get kinda hot? does anyone have any suggestions about how to set everything up, partitioning, configuration or stuff to watch out for. as for now i will spend the day tweaking vista and searching for apps and tutorials. also there is no installer for 64-bit vista, is this a problem? will it run fine? and should i have gotten the 32-bit version?