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Linux Used To Make "Star Trek, Nemesis"
Mike McCune writes "The "Linux Journal" has a nice article about the switch
from Irix to Linux at Digital Domain and the use of Linux in 'Star Trek, Nemesis.' I guess this means that Linux is finally ready for 'The Enterprise.'"
Titanic. It was on the cover of Linux Journal back in 98/99 or whenever it came out. At the time I was astounded at what they did. Now it's getting redundant (as are these articles).
Don't go to their website though. It's slower than crap.
I'm not sure if that's true. Looking over SGI's website, they don't seem to sell ANY linux based workstations any more. Only the Fuel and the Octane2 (both IRIX/MIPS machines.)
They do have a yet-to-be-released NUMA Linux system based on Itanium, but it probably shouldn't be thought of as a workstation.
I'm guessing you're probably right though that "SGI barely sells Irix machines". Not sure how many they're selling, but they're still cettainly losing money.
An in terms of enterprise acceptance... ...it's irrelevant. Movie special effects are not what people mean when they say "the enterprise." If you want to talk about Linux in the enterprise, you're going to have to talk about productivity and messaging and stuff like that. Stuff the average white-collar business drones need.
I write in my journal
I guess this means that Linux is finally ready for 'The Enterprise.'
Linux has replaced a significant number of NT machines at Digital Domain, both on the desktop and in the renderfarm. The machines are not being bought to replace Irix machines, they are being bought instead of Windows machines. And they are being bought for Linux itself, not because Linux is cheaper (each machine has a W2K license because they are dual-boot in case we need a huge LightWave render, and we pay for RedHat, so they are more expensive!).
Although we still have lots of Irix machines around we use them only because their cost is zero (since we already own them). Believe me Irix is not even considered in any consideration for purchases. We also have a lot of the SGI 320 NT workstations, which were a huge mistake, neither W2K or Linux work right on them. It was a direct competition between Linux and Windows and Linux won.
We could not consider Mac until OS/X came out. I understand it is quite popular at other places, and if our software is ported (which should not be hard) I think it will be popular at Digital Domain. Unless Linux GUI is improved considerably in the next 2 years it may find itself pushed back into the renderfarm and servers and off the desktop by OS/X.
> Linux has replaced a significant number of NT machines at Digital Domain, both on the desktop and in the renderfarm. The machines are not being bought to replace Irix machines, they are being bought instead of Windows machines. And they are being bought for Linux itself, not because Linux is cheaper (each machine has a W2K license because they are dual-boot in case we need a huge LightWave render, and we pay for RedHat, so they are more expensive!).
IIRC, there used to be a very strong pro-NT camp at Digital Domain. They were tireless and strident in their belief that anything Unix could do, NT could do better, claiming that the success of Titanic, for example, was due to NT. Or some such rot.
Fortunately, most of them decamped to form a company called Station X. There they continued to sing the praises of NT right up until the time they went out of business.
Digital Domain has been in the vanguard of those using Linux in visual effects for quite some time; and has been an inspiration to me and others in the industry. As they write quite a bit of their own software, they were able to adopt Linux sooner than most other companies who relied on commercial systems -- although now almost all of the commercial visual effects packages run well on Linux.
thad
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