Installing Maya 8 on Fedora Core 8 Linux
(with bonus appendix: how to install drivers in Fedora Core appropriate to your Nvidia card)
last update June 29, 2008
A tutorial from cgspeed.com
Copyright (c) 2008 Bruce Hahne
I'm in the process of trying to shift, as much as possible, from Microsoft-based operating systems to Linux for at least some of my work. Advantages of working under a free distribution of Linux include no licensing fees, no need to worry about whether you can reinstall the operating system on different hardware when you upgrade, easy use of all of your RAM, and no worries about whether your OS vendor is intentionally making it more difficult for you to create and edit content or locking down the OS to prevent creative freedom.
Unfortunately, a Maya install under Linux isn't as seamless as it is under Windows, so I took some notes when I did my most recent install of Maya on a new Fedora Core system. Here's my attempt to write up the steps. I can't guarantee that these steps will work for you, or that they'll work under software versions other than those I list here.
This tutorial assumes that you're comfortable with the basic use of Fedora Core 8, including both GUI-based and command-line based file navigation, plus how to use your "add/remove software" utility.
Hardware and software context:
- Intel 6600 quad-core CPU, 64-bit capable, 6 GB DRAM
- Fedora Core 8 (not 9!) 64-bit version, using the DVD image downloaded from fedoraproject.org in January 2008
- GNOME windows manager within Fedora (this is the default)
- Maya 8.0 64-bit version for Linux
- GEforce 8800GT video card
I don't presently (June 2008) recommend Fedora Core 9 as I had some significant video card driver and ethernet driver problems. The ethernet driver issues have also been flagged by others in user forums.
This tutorial is not for the 32-bit version of Fedora Core or Maya, although the steps below are very close to what you'd need to do on the 32-bit version.
1. Install Fedora Core 8 and do NOT choose the option to enable SElinux, the security feature set for Linux. Autodesk's install notes for Maya specifically note that SElinux isn't compatible with Maya. Disabling SElinux on a Fedora Core install where you've already chosen to enable it is beyond the scope of this tutorial, although there are some comments about how to do this in the Fedora Core 3 SElinux FAQ. My notes from an earlier attempt at Maya on Fedora Core 8 say that to disable SElinux, I ran /usr/bin/system-config-selinux and changed the enforcing modes to "permissive", which still make SElinux show all of the alerts but doesn't actually block programs from taking any action.
When I installed Fedora Core 8, I also chose one of the options that preinstalls various developer resources -- not the huge set of every X Windows development library, but just the basic developer resources so that I'd get the gcc compiler, Python, and so on. I can't say whether doing so was necessary as a prerequisite to installing Maya, since I haven't tried doing a Fedora Core install and not asking the Fedora installer to install the basic developer tools.
2. Install tcsh.
The shell script that you'll eventually run to start Maya requires csh, and tcsh will give you a csh equivalent. To do this, bring up your Package Manager using Applications-->Add/Remove Software from your top menu. Fedora should then ask you to authenticate as root, and then you should see the Package Manager window. Do a Search for "tcsh" and the Package Manager should find it available online. The version I have installed is "tcsh - 6.15-1.fc8.x86_64 - An enhanced version of csh, the C shell". Install this. If you don't do it, your attempts to start up Maya will fail.
3. Install libXp.
From your Package Manager, do a search for "libXp" and the Manager should show you several options, most of which are for "libXpm" not "libXp". The version of libXp that I have installed is "libXp - 1.0.0-8.fc8.x86_64 - X.Org X11 libXp runtime library". Install this. If you don't, Maya will die on startup with the error "libXp.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory".
4. Install supplementary X Windows fonts.
From you Package Manager, do a search for "xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-1". This should bring up about 10 different font file choices. If you search on a shorter string than what I suggest here, you'll get a large list of font choices and it will get more confusing. The fonts that you want are the "-1" 75dpi and 100dpi fonts, not the "-14" or "-15" fonts. The fonts that I have installed on my Fedora box are:
"xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-1-75dpi - 7.2-3.fc8.noarch - A set of 75dpi ISO-8859-1 fonts for X"
"xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-1-100dpi - 7.2-3.fc8.noarch - A set of 100dpi ISO-8859-1 fonts for X
Install these two font files if your Package Manager lists either of them as not yet installed. In my install of Fedora Core 8, I already had the 100dpi file but I had to install the 75dpi file.
If you don't install these fonts, you'll get continuous errors of this form when you use Maya:
"Error: Failed trying to load font : -*-helvetica-bold-r-normal--10-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1" and you'll lose much of you ability to see text and error messages from Maya at the bottom of the Maya screen.
5. Check your font install.
From a shell, go to /etc/X11 and use "less" or any text editor to take a look at you fontpath.d file. You should be able to find three lines that look very much like this:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 36 2008-06-07 16:06 xorg-x11-fonts-100dpi:unscaled:pri=
30 -> /usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 35 2008-06-10 22:56 xorg-x11-fonts-75dpi:unscaled:pri=2
0 -> /usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 34 2008-06-07 16:06 xorg-x11-fonts-misc:unscaled:pri=10 -> /usr/share/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled
If you don't have all three of those lines -- one for 100dpi, one for 75dpi, and one for misc, then you might not have sufficient fonts installed for Maya to function completely. If you don't have these lines in your fontpath.d file, stop here and fix your font situation before moving forward. Working with your fontpath.d file and adding fonts outside of the context of the Package Manager is beyond the scope of this tutorial. However in my install of Fedora Core 8, I simply needed to add the 75dpi fonts (step 4 of this tutorial) and I was good to go, so hopefully it will work for you also.
6. Restart X Windows by logging out of Fedore Core and logging back in, or doing a complete reboot. This step is to make sure that X sees your new fonts correctly.
7. If necessary, adjust your ethernet MAC address. Most people won't need to do this step.
Maya 8.0's licensing system locks the Maya license to the recognized ethernet MAC address of the computer that you're running on. If for some reason Fedora is not seeing the correct ethernet MAC address, or if you've got some fancier setup where you use a different ethernet card for Fedora, then you might need to force Fedora to assign a MAC address to your ethernet card that's different from the burned-in-address (BIA) on your actual ethernet hardware.
To force Fedora to use a MAC address that you specify, go to /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts and look for the ethernet interface configuration file associated with your (or one of your) ethernet interfaces. In almost all Fedora Core installations, this configuration file will be named "ifcfg-eth0". Make a backup of this configuration file somewhere safe, then edit it (you'll need to be root), and add a new line at the bottom of the ifcfg-eth0 that looks something like this:
MACADDR=12:34:56:78:9a:bc where "12:34:56:78:9a:bc" is the MAC address associated with your license key. All you're doing here is changing the 48-bit MAC address that Fedora will associate with the ethernet controller.
Please follow all terms and conditions associated with your Maya / Autodesk license. This step is here to help people to work through any legitimate problems with getting your licensed copy of Maya to run on your hardware.
If you did need to do this step 7, reboot after you've added the MACADDR line so that the configuration change will take. Then after reboot, from a shell you can issue the "ifconfig -a" command to list the information about your ethernet port. Look for the text towards the top that says "Hwaddr __________", and it should show the MACADDR that you configured.
8. Install Maya!
We can finally start to install Maya itself. Put your 64-bit Linux install DVD from Autodesk into your drive, navigate within the Fedora GUI to the "maya80linux64" directory, and install the following. You can generally do an install of each .rpm file by right-clicking on the icon for the .rpm file and choosing "Open with Software Installer".
8.1 Install AWCommon-10.80-7.x86_64.rpm or whatever version of AWCommon..._64 you have.
8.2 Install Maya8_0_64-8.0-179.x86_64.rpm or whatever version of Maya..._64 you have.
On my system, this install step (for Maya8) gave some awk errors but still seemed to complete successfully.
8.3 Install the Maya documentation .rpm file. I've misplaced my notes that list the exact file name for the docs, but I believe it's in the same directory as the other Maya .rpm files above.
9. Fix your "windows movement key".
No, don't start Maya yet -- first you need to make one change to how the Fedora GUI handles windows. From your top Fedora menu, choose System --> Preferences --> Look and Feel --> Windows and Fedora should bring up the "Window Preferences" configuration window.
Within this window, find the section that says "Movement Key" and change it to "Super". The default is "Alt". If you don't make this change, you won't be able to use Maya's standard hold-down-the-alt-key mechanism for camera movement, because Fedora's GNOME window manager will intercept your ALT keypress and assume that you're trying to move the window around. Maya will never see the ALT keypress.
10. Start Maya!
The install that you did at step 8 should have created the runable file /usr/local/bin/maya, which will be a symlink to /usr/aw/maya8.0-x64/bin/Maya8.0
From a shell, type:
/usr/local/bin/maya
Of course if /usr/local/bin is in your path, then you only need to type "maya".
The first time you do this, you should get Autodesk's standard license key installation window and utility since you haven't entered your license key yet. Install your license key, and then the next time you type "/usr/local/bin/maya" you should be up and running Maya 8.0.
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KNOWN ISSUES, or at least issues that I have:
- When I minimize Maya and then try to unminimize Maya again, it takes 6-30 seconds for the Maya window to appear, and during that time my display is mostly locked up. I can move the mouse around but I can't select any windows or do any work. A similar result happens if I'm using the Workplace Switcher virtual screen system (which installs by default in Fedora 8), then I shift from the active Maya virtual screen to some other screen, and then back.
- SpaceNavigator installation for Maya on Linux is ferociously tricky and has a variety of issues:
-- No comprehensive install instructions available for SpaceNavigator for Fedora.
-- There are undocumented steps to the install process, such as how you need to enable the 3dConnexion driver from your Maya plug-in manager.
-- Fedora Core 8 doesn't have some necessary X Windows components required by the SpaceNavigator, and getting those components is a difficult manual process.
-- Control window availability for SpaceNavigator both on Fedora and within Linux is unpredictable
-- The MEL scripts for SpaceNavigator on Linux Maya are several years old and a full version behind the Maya-for-Windows MEL scripts offered by 3dConnexion. There are a lot of features missing from the Linux version.
-- When the SpaceNavigator plug-in is active in Maya, it breaks Maya batch rendering! All batch renders will fail and you'll get a "maya encountered a fatal error Signal: 11 (Unknown Signal)" in your mayaRenderLog.txt file.
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BONUS appendix: how to install drivers in Fedora Core appropriate to your Nvidia card (if you're using an Nvidia card...)
I purchased a GeForce 8800GT video card for use with my Fedora Core system, and then had to spend some time to determine the best way to actually get correct video drivers for it. You'd think that the right thing to do would be to download Nvidia's Linux driver set from www.nvidia.com, but research in forums suggested that this wasn't the right choice. Instead, several users recommended the use of the "Livna" driver set, which appears to be based on the official Nvidia release but is different from that release. To be able to use your Fedora Package Manager to install the Livna driver set, you first have to add to the Package Manager configuration itself. Here's the full process.
1. Set up your Package Manager to use Livna.
In a browser, go to http://rpm.livna.org. You should see a section of the resulting web page titled "Repository RPMs" and one of the choices in that section should be "Fedora 8 repository RPM". Click on the link, and your browser (I'm using Firefox) should give you a dialogue box that asks you what to do with the .rpm file. You can then save the .rpm file to disk, then install it by right-clicking on the .rpm file's icon in the Fedora GUI.
2. Confirm the setup.
Bring up the Package Manager using "Applications --> Add/Remove Software" from your top menu. Within the Package Manager, choose "Edit --> Repositories" and you'll get a list of all of the repositories that the Package Manager knows about. Scroll down in this list and confirm that there are several new repositories that start with the name "livna-". Now close the Repository Manager edit window. You don't need to edit anything.
3. Install the Nvidia drivers.
Within the Package Manager, do a search for "kmod-nvidia". You should get a huge list of choices, so many that it will be difficult to find the right choice. What you want is the metapackage which has the largest version number, and which has a "_64" at the end of it since you're running the 64-bit release of Fedora Core (you are, right?)
On my system, the metapackage that I have installed is:
"kmod-nvidia - 173.14.09-2.lvn8.x86_64 - Metapackage which tracks in nvidia kernel module for newest kernel".
Install this metapackage, and the metapackage should then automagically pull in the "kmod-nvidia" release appropriate to you kernel. I've found that even when I upgrade my kernel to newer sub-releases of Fedora Core 8, that this approach of using the metapackage appears to automagically hunt down and install the correct new release of the kmod-Nvidia drivers for me at the same time that the kernel upgrade happens.