all these Ideas are good. I think if we all worked together to make this thing a reality it would be really cool.
I only know basic c++ and a little about linux but i’d be glad to learn.
any volunteers? spread the word and I’ll post in the first post who all’s volunteered. I, however, do not know enough to be project leader. Anyone want to give it a try? just post here.
This could be a chance to revolutionize the use of blender. If we make this it would give blender users a definite edge over maya etc. users.
If we get enough people I’ll try to get a website together for it too.
What would rock is if you used AutoPackage for installing software. Then it would be really simple for people to use.
The main thing is tuning the kernel, etc. Thats where the base comes in, but I wouldn’t want to be maintaining a whole distro. That would just take too much of anyones life.
Debian… stale but useable.
Gentoo… Can be done but not LFHS safe.
OpenSuse… not so open.
Fedora Core… ya, whatever.
Slackware, haven’t used it in years, but that would probably be my first bet. Easy to tune, reliable, and the oldest distro still in existance.
Some other things to think about custom patchset kernel built for floating point, NPTL , for super fast threading. Built in OpenMosix clustering support. Wine setup specifically for installing nessecary apps, photoshop etc…
WooHoo, that name is better. As far as volunteering goes, Im in, but I dont know any c/c++ or anything, so not sure where I could help, maybe getting programs together to include.
However, I dont reckon that we should start from scratch, we should be modifying a version of linux that is already up and running and that the core is being updated reasonably often as well. If we were to do this, would we really need to know much c? I am really liking the look of e-live www.elivecd.org with the choice of 2 desktops (16 is my favourite and very fast) and it already has a lot of programs that we would use. Although it is a live cd, it also has an install option once booted. Im not sure about any tools for editing/updating the installed programs, but would definently be worth checking out.
For the time that would need investing and the Linux knowledge required would’nt it be better to adopt a live distro and work with it’s creator / gurus to get the additional modules you may require.
All this talk of creating a Creative Linux Disto is nice (naive). I would guess there is a lot of time involved creating and maintaining such a thing. The more time spent away from Blender and your other creative apps is time lost.
I’d be interested in helping. I’m a Linux Admin by trade, so I have a fair amount of knowledge of how Linux works. I also program C/C++ & Python fluently. And know enough PHP, VB, Java, HTML to get by.
What about a DSL based distro?
Here are some other thoughts:
What about FreeBSD. Look at some benchmarks via google, FreeBSD is a really fast OS. And it supports Blender.
I’m interested in this to see how far we can tune it. I bet, with the proper tuning we could squeeze this thing into a business card CD. That would be great for promos, if nothing else.
Hi the big problem with a real linux “blender os” is the speed of the X-server. In my opinion it would be better to dump that old graphic concept and have a fast single user graphic api.
The X-server API is not the source of speed problems. It is how the X-server interacts with the kernel. The X-server runs in user space, and as such, the kernel scheduler limits how much CPU time it is allowed. Any other user space API will face the same problems.
However, the more the rendering is offloaded from the CPU to the GPU, the less effect the kernel scheduler has upon it. For instance the nvidia driver with acceleration enabled is much snappier. Also patches like Ingo Molnar’s realtime-preempt patch can mostly eliminate any lag time.
Much of the XGl and related projects where the X server output is rendered by OpenGL also does a lot to eliminate lag time.
Personally, the way I have my system set up, I don’t experience any lag time at all.
Linux for blender users - bheheh - I have built linux system for my diploma - called WildSnake with:
Alsa (sound) - i like when something is making noises when i’m modeling
Internet - reference searching… bla bla
Gimp - textures…
mplayer, xmms, blender, xfce ect.
If you want an early alfa system, but working - with additional tools for building system and have server for it (675 mb) I can share with my work. Of cousse I can spent a little more time on it and make finished OS
If you want LiveCD you must remember about:
-correct autodetection of hardware - especially graphic card drivers
-system uses some amout of memory to keep files that should have a read-write permisions (not a big problem)
-some performance losses becouse of portability ( you just can’t compile code with all optimisations flags)
I’m very sleepy - I’m writing documentation
What I want from my BlenderLin?
it should be small 300 mb is max ( i think rater about 200 - you know small buisness cd)
full autodetection
So think about it - I have no motivation to finish it out - couse I want to spent some time with some exotic kernel (HURD) and some cluster aplications
I could lead the team. I don’t have a boat load of time, but most of this should be automated. Compiling CDs is more waiting on the CPU than anything.
What programs are we looking at? Here is an outline of what I’m thinking of so far:
DSL (debian/knoppix) based
Blender
Gimp
Audacity
Yafray
Full Python 2.4
VLC
Aqsis(?)
We should add startup options for allowing the user to mount certain partitions for swap and scratch space. If not already supported we need to make sure the kernel has support for:
Samba
NTFS (read-only)
FAT32
NFS
If we really want to go for a “cool” distro, we could build it on Mosix. This would allow a person to burn 10 copies, fire up the copies on 10 machines and instantly turn them into a cluster(renderfarm) that YafRay could use.
I started a topic in this a while ago, search for it, I got lazy and had pc problems to I never finished it. There are suggestions for the base and all the tools needed though.
great! now I don’t have to worry about pulling everything together (i’ve got enough of that to do for my movie)
what about firefox? no os is complete without it (imho). Besides, 90% of the time I email myself stuff. And what better to do while waiting on a render than browse forums like elysiun…
I don’t know about the logistics though.
Also, I think it would be really nice to have a tool to select only the programs you want in the cd. That way, if you want firefox you can have it, or if you want only blender for faster boot times…
Don’t take much I say seriously yet until I become more knowledgable about this stuff.
also, pm me if you want the title changed or anything.
Clustering - I agree with mosix. I think that it would be cool to have clustering enabled on the main live cd, then have some “node” cds that you can boot on the “spare” computers, probably only with a comand line interface, or maybe very basic gui. I think open mosix already has something like this. Else you could start all computers off the same type of live cd, but that would chew more resources.
Render farm - Dr queue? Already configured so that you start up a server on one computer, then the client on all computers, and away you go. I think this should be additional to the clustering.
a re-compiler. I like it how you can edit around (ie - add modules etc) slax (on your hdd) and then just use the bat file to recompile. The main reason for this is that when there is an updated program, you can just (a lot of the time) replace the executable (and maybe one or 2 other files), and you have all the latest programs running on your live cd, without haveing to wait for the version of linux to bring out a new release.
Ardour - audacity is already listed, and although I have not had a chance to look too in depth into sound on linux, seems (from forums etc) that ardour is not as easy to use as audacity, but can be a lot more effective for pro’s. I know audacity is reasonably small, and I think Ardour is as well, so maybe have both? If we have to choose between one or the other, then stick to audacity.
VST/midi - I dont know much about this area (yet), but I think it would be cool to have some VST and at least one midi tool. This is so that you can at least add a drumbeat and a few instruments in the background if recording, and besides, they generally dont take up too much room. Does anyone know of some good programs in this area, or should I research it? *** I think we could try find someone who does a bit of audio in linux, and get them to have some input to the programs they would like for this section***
VERSE - must have http://www.blender.org/cms/Verse-Blender.verse_blender.0.html (this is an overview of verse from the blender site). This may wait untill the first full release (shouldnt be too far away), but would be cool to be able to work beside a maya/3ds workstaion etc (or with the gimp etc etc)
BASE - I havent used DSL yet, but what is the hardware support like? If it lacks drivers etc, I think it would be better to start with a larger more supported linux, and rip as much out as possible. I dont think keeping it too small should be a main aim, as long as its under 700mb (cd size). Maybe instead of keeping it small, just offer a few versions that have more/less apps installed. Shouldnt take too long to compile an extra copy would it? Should we take MAC’s into account? ie. even if there is no mac version yet, should we start with a linux that has a mac version, so that its an option for us down the track if people are interested?
8 ) Desktop - Im not sure how hard it is to change or add/remove desktops. I love the enlightment desktop (enlightment 16 is my favourite, see what happens about 17 once its complete), as it runs very fast, yet still looks sweet. elive (http://www.elivecd.org/) has the option of booting either e16 or e17, maybe we could have an option of gnome or e16 or something, but that depends on the coders (as I dont have a clue about code).
NLE - not blender. tbc++ I guess you’d know more about this Im a keen follower of positron and cant wait until it is fully released, but for now, maybe add cinelerra/jashaka or both, as they are only smaller apps anyhow.
Browser - I think maybe firefox, unless there is something smaller out there. We shouldnt be optimising for internet, but if available on the network, we should be able to use it (for research etc). No email clients etc, just a basic browser.
Text editing - I think something reasonably basic, so that we can take out openoffice - considering its size. There is probably already one in whatever os is used.
Inkscape - I think we definently need a vector program, although inkscape is the only decent one I know of.
renderers - Do we want povray and plugins, or any other renderers?
Cinepaint - To touch up the videos made.
Well, I think I’ll leave it at this for now, sorry about the long post. If I think of anything else, I’ll post again later.
For the Blender renderfarm on a mosix cluster, it would be simpler just to make a script that forks a blender process for frame being rendered, and let Mosix handle moving them to the rendernodes.
Ardour looks good. Never used it before, I’ll have to fix that.
VST plug-ins are a must, and midi would be good, but we will need someone to head that end up.
VERSE is a go.
I think DSL defaults to basic drivers for everything. i.e. VESA. I’ll try it out on a few machines here at work and see how it works out.
What about Kino for a NLE? I’m loath to use the bug ridden Cinelerra, or Jahshaka, until they fix their problems.
- called WildSnake with:
