Last Updated: June 20th, 2002

Qualification of Maya 4.0.1 on Red Hat 7.1/7.2
Products Version Software Date
Maya Builder
4.0.1
200111122335
Maya Complete 4.0.1 200111122335
Maya Unlimited 4.0.1 200111122335

Operating System

Maya 4.0.1 is qualified on the following Computer Models with Red Hat 7.1/7.2
Maya 4.0.1 is NOT qualified on Red Hat 7.3. It will NOT launch - you will get an undefined symbol error.
Important Note: The Linux operating system is extremely flexible with regards to precise versioning of different components, drivers and libraries. Maya may behave very differently on superficially similar systems and while Alias will do our best to help solve problems that are probably due to operating system configuration issues, we may be unable to explain or determine the cause of a problem.
Internally at Alias we have stabilized on the following configuration. We provide this list for the purpose of aiding our customers, but we can make no guarantees to the reliability, stability or availability of these components. This is not a complete list of Linux configuration choices, but are only the important components that we are aware significantly affect Maya.
 

Computer Models
Maya 4.0.1 is qualified on the following systems:
Company Model Web
sgi Visual Workstation 230/330/550 www.sgi.com
HP HP Workstation X1000/X1100/X2000/X2100/X4000 www.hp.com
IBM IBM MPRO 6850 www.ibm.com
Compaq W6000/W8000 www.compaq.com

Graphics
Maya is qualified with the following graphics adapters (with the specified driver for the specified operating systems). Alias has tested only drivers listed under each OS. While it may be possible to use Maya successfully on earlier or later drivers, Alias cannot guarantee their performance or behaviour. If you encounter problems with a driver, we strongly suggest that you contact the graphic card vendor to report your problem.
Company Graphics Controller Red Hat 6.2 Red Hat 7.1 Red Hat 7.2
sgi VR3 untested 1.0-1541 1.0-1541
HP FX5/FX10 untested 1.5.3-1 1.5.3-1
NVIDIA Quadro series untested 1.0-1541 1.0-1541
ATI Fire GL2 untested XFree86 4.0.3
1.9.7		 XFree86 4.1.0
1.9.7
ATI Fire GL4 untested XFree86 4.0.3
1.9.7		 XFree86 4.1.0
1.9.7
ATI Fire GL8800 untested untested XFree86 4.1.0
1.3.1
see below for important details about each of these graphics cards.

Video Cards without Hardware Overlay Planes

There will be visual differences compared with Hardware overlays that may result in difficulty seeing or manipulating aspects of the scene or Maya interface. Examples of Graphics cards without Hardware overlays include (but are not restricted to):
  • VR3
  • Quadro line of cards
    • Although Maya may be used successfully on systems containing these Graphics Cards, only those specifically listed here have been tested. Please review the notes below carefully as some of these cards have limitations which may make them unsuitable for your purposes.

    Sound
    Alias is aware that sound reproduction inside Maya (scrubbing and playback) doesn't work on many sound cards on Linux. At this time we must caution you that sound reproduction may not be adequate for your purposes. Sound playback does behave correctly on some cards and some on-board/built-in sound devices, and we are currently attempting to identify specific sound cards that provide better performance.
    So far we have identified Soundblaster 16, onboard sound device on sgi 230 and 330 as providing adequate performance.
    Soundblaster Live cards are currently known to provide inadequate performance for interactive sound playback - particularly scrubbing.

    General Configuration
    • A three button mouse is required.
    • At least 128 MB of RAM is required and 256 MB or more is strongly recommended.
    • It may be possible to successfully use Maya with a non-qualified or partially qualified configuration, but support and maintenance programs will be subject to the Alias Support services guidelines.
    • The configurations shown are subject to change, and additional qualified configurations may be added after qualification testing has been carried out.
    • NFS issues with Irix file servers can be corrected with a patch for Redhat 7.1. This issue was fixed in Redhat 7.2.
    • Where Graphics Controllers are configurable, you must have at least 16MB of texture memory (TRAM). Due to the differences in the manner in which hardware vendors approach display memory, we suggest that you consult your hardware vendor to ensure that your configuration will support your required resolution.
    • The graphics drivers specified in this table are the drivers that were used for the qualification process. While it may be possible to use Maya successfully on earlier or later drivers, Alias cannot guarantee their performance or behaviour.
    • We do not recommend saving data directly from Maya to NFS or other remote mounted file systems. We strongly recommend that you save the files locally and then copy the data to the mounted storage system.
    • Linux Compiler Requirement: To build Maya plug-ins, your redhat system must have the egcs 1.1.2 compiler (or compatible) for compiling plugins/standalones. See Linux User Notes and Installation Guide for more information.
    • When texture images are stored on systems remote from the rendering process; depending on network speed, specifications and load it is possible that the renderer may be unable to access a texture file on demand and may 'drop' individual textures on a frame by frame basis. To reduce this occurrence store textures on a system local to the rendering process.


    Information Specific to Operating Systems:

    Redhat 7.1 and 7.2
    Limitations and Solutions
    Limitation Maya hangs after doing 15 interactive renders (in the render view).
    Solution Update the glibc modules from the Redhat update page: https://www.redhat.com/support/errata/rh71-errata.html
    Download the glibc-devel update. This includes glibc-2.2.4-19.3.i386.rpm as well as the other related modules. There were a number of pthread specific fixes in the 2.2.4-19 updates, which did seem to fix some other pthread related problems. There is the equivalent update for Redhat 7.2.

    Information Specific to Graphics Cards/Drivers:
    VR3
    Model Version Driver Settings
    VR3 (sgi) Red Hat 7.1/7.2: 1.0-1541 default settings
    Limitations and Solutions
    Limitation No Hardware Overlay Planes - Features making use of the the overlay planes (brush outlines, timeline indicators, texture placements, etc) will appear grey instead of the appropriate highlight colour.
    Solution None

    FX5/FX10
    Model Version Driver Settings
    FX5/FX10 (HP) Red Hat 7.1/7.2: 1.5.3-1 default settings
    Limitations and Solutions
    Limitation Multipass hardware renders in textured mode can result in black renders.
    Solution None.
    Limitation Hardware rendering of sprites sometimes render as grey rectangles.
    Solution None.
    Limitation Enter key in script editor may not work properly.
    Solution Keyboard configuration file can be adjusted to match expected functionality.
    Limitation Image plane display may be corrupted when alpha gain is less than 1.0.
    Solution None.

    Quadro Series
    Model Version Driver Settings
    Quadro Series (NVIDIA) Red Hat 7.1/7.2: 1.0-1541 default settings
    Limitations and Solutions
    Limitation No Hardware Overlay Planes - Features making use of the the overlay planes (brush outlines, timeline indicators, texture placements, etc) will appear grey instead of the appropriate highlight colour.
    Solution None

    Fire GL2
    Model Version Driver Settings
    Fire GL2 (ATI) Red Hat 7.1/7.2: 1.97 default settings
    Limitations and Solutions
    Limitation None
    Solution None

    Fire GL4
    Model Version Driver Settings
    Fire GL4 (ATI) Red Hat 7.1/7.2: 1.97 default settings
    Limitations and Solutions
    Limitation None.
    Solution None

    Fire GL8800
    Model Version Driver Settings
    Fire GL8800 (ATI) Red Hat 7.2: 1.3.1 default settings
    Limitations and Solutions
    Limitation Image planes do not display properly in Luminance or Alpha mode.
    Solution None