Linux at Industrial Light and Magic

Nicholas DePetrillo writes "Linux Journal has a big story about how LINUX is being used in hollywood, specificly at Industrial Light and Magic with some GREAT screenshots and a very descriptive article with configuration details." Word has it that their rendering farms have gotten even bigger since this article was published.

My favorite quote

[NTT]

``Due to the speed of Linux, for the first time in my life, 15 years in the business, I'm starting to feel some RSI [repetitive strain injury]'', says Technical Director Robert Weaver. ``Usually you are working the machine, but Linux is so fast it can overwork you.'' Weaver has to remember to take breaks because with Linux he doesn't get any breaks waiting for the machine anymore

Another great idea for google ...

[hemabe]

hey, a few weeks ago you could win money for a great idea, how to extend google in an attractive way. here is mine: every time, an article is posted to slashdot, google will be automaticly informed a few seconds before (with SOAP) to fetch the links. This would be a great cowork between google and slashdot and i could finaly read all the articles ;) ciao, Hermi

Linux or Intel?

[Coward Anonymous]

Of course, performance doesn't suffer when you upgrade from a 5 y/o processor to a new top-of-the-line processor.
Most of the descriptions about speed up seem to be directly attributable to Intel, not Linux...

Re:Looks bad for Alias Wavefront and SGI

[tolldog]

I wouldn't fear for A|W too much.
Everybody in the industry uses it. We would not be able to function with out it. Being in a medium sized studio, we need to have some solutions come pre-packaged and others to be built in-house.

I do worry for SGI though. They are loosing (or maybe lost) the high end desk top war. People are picking up dual Xeons and even after PC manufacturer's suport contracts, it is cheaper than a stand alone SGI that runs at half the speed.

We have been migrating to linux for the last two years, first as a render solution and then as a desktop solution. When we get a linux compositing tool in house, we will be completely free of SGI systems for production work.

-Tim