UBUNTU LINUX or WINDOWS FOR BLENDER USAGE

I was just searching the internet for a new operating systems(sick to death of MS WINDOWS. i was sure there was such a thing but i didn’t know much more than these words, “LINUX”, “WINDOWS” ’ MAC: when i remembered hearing blender was originally a made for Linux. as far as i know …
well i also discovered that many of the LINUX Flavors are distributed FREE. free is cool.

i hate Microsoft though they rule the world with a, kind, older brother like, iron fist. EULA five miles long.

so my question is does the Linux version of blender “work better” (render time and basic performance) on a given machine or does the windows version work best…nowadays…?

what do you all think of UBUNTU?

Ubuntu is great as an OS, see all the threads that come up in the search function above. The only issues with Ubuntu or any other Linux distro is your hardware - ATI cards need to be configured correctly, Nvidia cards are easier for initial set up, and Blender performs well when you can put it on a machine with decent ram and processor/s.

I have Kubuntu on a scrap machine at home, and I like it very well.

i ave been using BLEDNER for years on my XP computer. ati 256 radeon 9550 2.4ghz proc 256 megs of ram. i do fine on it.

i just wondered if i could squeeze a little more performance out of it using Linux.

my question if you had two identical systems one Ubuntu and one XP would Ubuntu run BLENDER better than windows does. would there be a difference in performance?

In my experience, there´s definitely a difference in performance. Windows build renders the benchmark file in 3:37 while Linux does it in 4:12…

I posted these results and there where tons of people here that told me that I should compile Blender myself in order to get the best performance under Linux. I have not had the time to study how to do this yet. Anyway, someone told me to try Blender Windows build under linux using WINE, and surprisingly, it matched XP´s render time.
The only drawback is that viewport performance is not as good as in Windows.

According to the most experienced Linux users here, you can get the best performance by compiling Blender yourself and running it under GENTOO (a linux distro that compiles everything from the installation, so everything is optimized for your own system)

Well, the rendering should not depend on the operating system very much. There can be a difference in common usage of the computer - if you really want the best of your system, choose between windows 2K and Xubuntu (ubuntu fork).
//edit: jpbouza:: well, I looked at some benchmarks, but didn’t try it myself. I’m a bit surprised by such a bit difference as you write.

Anyway, there can be a difference in performance. Ubuntu has more functions to customize for your needs, what can save some time for you.
On the other side, you can maybe spend too much time with that customising - windows should work out of the box.

I use Xubuntu, because ubuntu was a bit lazier with my 256M of RAM.
But that is probably not your problem, maybe Kubuntu will be the best then (it is slower, but the most user-friendly).

Just try them, if you have enough time for trying, and decide on your own. There is no problem in installing more systems on one computer.

Okay, so let me see… I have read numerous posts about improvements in performance due to the ability to use more ram in linux than in windows, since windows has a 2 gig limitation or something like that, and linux allows you to use 4 gigs. I could be mistaken on this, but I think that is why renderdemon is capable of the sculptures he produces in linux.

I believe that the ability to use the viewport better is dependent on your graphics card, not on the OS. Render times benchmarks can be found in several threads with the 2.44 version, just use the search function in the header here.

I´m talking about Ubuntu Studio and Windows in the same machine, an Atholn 64 3500+ with 2GB of RAM and a Geforce 6800 gt.

I´d like to say that Linux is faster, but as far as I can tell, it is not, at least with the out of the box settings.

When I have time I´ll probably try Xubuntu, and I´ll try to compile blender myself. Although it seems a little bit complicated, specially if you want to optimize the build.

i have been messing around with blender on UBUNTU. got a QUESTION when you open a image to UV MAP…your already in UV FACE SELECT mode…you have spit your VIEWPORT and you have one of your viewports changed into a UV/IMAGE EDITOR… where is the IMAGE.
i had IMAGE…OPEN…browsed… and loaded the image…the image didn’t appear in the image edit window…get this it did appear on the MODEL (IE penguin)

why is the image not showing up at all…

any difference in Linux version vs the WINDOWS version…

UBUNTU IS AWESOME!!!

I just wanted to say that. I have worked a fair amount on Windows, Macs, and in Ubuntu, and I must say that, even with the out-of the box settings, Ubuntu is far the best. I really like simplicity, and Ubuntu gives me a desktop with (sadly) one icon, which I can’t get rid of (its the Windows partition). Ubuntu works for almost all of my needs (there’s a few functions in Word that aren’t replicated in OpenOffice, and no support for Graphical Analysis). As I learnt more about Ubuntu, I got more efficient at using it, making it seem even faster.

For Blender usage, I have not noticed any difference between Windows, and Ubuntu (the Macs are not comparable because I hate them and the ones I use are 4x as powerful as my laptop). You’ll want to change the (Ubuntu) setting to move windows around the screen from ALT to SUPER (that’s the windows logo key), so that ALT + MOUSE commands work in Blender.

The fact that you are even asking that question screams Windows to me.

Linux if you have 64bit hardware, but be prepared to do some serious reading, it is not very nice to non-gurus. (but it is getting better every day)

Why not just set up a multi boot system and see for yourself? BSD is getting pretty cool, and last I hear Solaris can run blender too 8)

BENCHMARK for

UBUNTU7.04
vs.
Windows XP home service pack 2

[LEFT]I don’t know much about benchmarks but i have some information i collected. I benchmarked UBUNTU7.04 and windows XP. I wonder what this information means. Or if it means anything. I have my desktop computer set to dual boot operating systems so i could check out what OS was better for BLENDER usage.

can any one tell me what this all means?
If you know how to read benchmark information please tell me which operating system had the best performance in BLENDER.

Computer specs
dell dimension 4550
2.4ghz Intel P4
256 MB Ram
ATI radeon 9550 with 256 MB ram
blender 2.44 on both

3 test for each benchmark type…just for accuracy.

UBUNTU 7.04
DRAW
0.001411 s/op - 708.58 op/s - 3543 iterations
0.001411 s/op - 708.64 op/s - 3544 iterations
0.001411 s/op - 708.52 op/s - 3543 iterations
WINDOWS XP HOME
DRAW
0.001440 s/op - 694.37 op/s - 3472 iterations
0.001441 s/op - 694.16 op/s - 3471 iterations
0.001410 s/op - 694.39 op/s - 3472 iterations

UBUNTU 7.04
RECALC OB
0.000001 s/op - 810286.89 op/s 100000 iterations
0.000001 s/op - 809349.33 op/s 100000 iterations
0.000001 s/op - 809815.24 op/s 100000 iterations
WINDOWS XP HOME
RECALC OB
0.000002 s/op - 594856.83 op/s 100000 iterations
0.000002 s/op - 594848.92 op/s 100000 iterations
0.000002 s/op - 595294.08 op/s 100000 iterations

UBUNTU 7.04
RECALC DATA
0.000013 s/op - 78679.95 op/s - 100000 iterations
0.000013 s/op - 79082.21 op/s - 100000 iterations
0.000013 s/op - 78901.13 op/s - 100000 iterations
WINDOWS XP HOME
RECALC DATA
0.000013 s/op - 78914.21 op/s - 100000 iterations
0.000013 s/op - 79022.42 op/s - 100000 iterations
0.000013 s/op - 78884.25 op/s - 100000 iterations

can any one tell me what this all means?
If you know how to rad benchmark information please tell me which operating system had the best performance in BLENDER[/LEFT]

I don´t know what those values mean, I hope someone can tell.

Anyway, download the render benchmark file from here and render the scene from both OS.

http://www.eofw.org/bench/

blender works like a dream in ubuntu, a little faster than it does in XP. and then on top of that, you can customize your desktop in ways that you cannot in windoze. it has a great framerate. the only problem i find with it is that i don’t know how to implement the python scripts.

The performance differences between Ubuntu and Windows (32-bit, or 64-bit) in my opinion are rather null. I would tend to think that Ubuntu can give you better performance if you are a hard core linux guru and are building your own kernels, own optimized builds of blender, etc. But, judging by your knowledge of linux from your original post, you probably won’t notice a difference.

As far as RAM usage, it’s true that the 32 bit versions of Windows (XP, not sure about Vista) only allow a 3GB limit, while the 32 bit version of Linux only allows for 4GB. If you don’t know this already, the 4GB limit comes from the math 2^32 = 4GB.

I don’t know why 32bit XP has a 3GB limit, but you should also know that after XP is finished addressing hardware and such, applications can only address about 2 of the 3GB. No matter what operating system you are running a 32 bit build of blender on, it will always crash at around 2GB. There was a “large address capable” blender 2.44 build floating around here somewhere (I have it on my machine at home) that is capable of addressing 4GB without crashing, but you obviously need 4GB of RAM and a 64bit Operating system to use that.

I run Blender on Vista x64 with 4GB of RAM, and I can push blender pretty far with that.

Anyway, like I said, you probably won’t notice a difference across the operating systems. What really makes a difference is your models (how efficient you are with vertices), textures, materials, that sort of stuff.

Use what you want, and don’t think twice about it.

Also, what hardware are you running this on?

honestly,

Who here has actually made a scene that requires them to use over even 2 gigs of ram?

Mmph!, have you seen renderdemons work?

High poly sculpting takes you to those levels. I can start swapping on my 1.5 gig machine when sculpting something detailed.

Have you ever used the fluid sim? You hit that limit in a hurry (at least… I do)!

And, I’ve hit the 2GB limit on other projects I’ve done (which is why I stuck 4GB in this machine. Now I don’t even have to think about it). I haven’t hit the 4GB limit yet, so when I do, I’ll be sure to let everyone know :P.

Ubuntu’s a great OS and it’s the one I use the most. Said that, it’s very consuming with RAM and CPU, as it loads many demons and services for automated tasks, and you probably won’t need em all (you can safely discharge the HP printing support if don’t have got such a printer, for example). It’s easily tweakable, but a little knoledge of linux (or whatever *nix) is needed to avoid troubles.

Linux’s got excellent memory usage and multitasking, that’s why it comes very handy when rendering. You can choose extremely light GUIs when resources are needed, and even cut off the gui at all and render from command line once the scene’s ready.

The key is however, having as less runnning programs as possible, on every OS. Even on windows, try to unload all those fancy icons on the task bar, take a look to startup launched software with “Startup inspector” and try disabling services you don’t need.

I just wonder though what do those numbers mean.

Can any one interpret those numbers i posted earlier.

With those benchmarks who wins UBUNTU 7.04 OR WINDOWS XP HOME

My problem is i don’t know what those numbers mean…

I do believe even a marginal differance would matter if your rendering all night and working on it all day. even if its just a frame or two a night or even if it was one less restart per day. it would matter…

Draw: Ubuntu wins
Recalc Ob: Ubuntu Wins
Recalc Data: Windows Wins

Assuming op/s means operations per second, the more, the better. On the other hand, I’d be less worried about which operating system you are using with that little RAM. Memory for a 2.4GHz P4 should be pretty cheap now. If your motherboard supports it (look it up), you’d be best with at least 1GB, preferably 2.