Hi all,

up until recently we was quite happy in Windows land, but due to some issues with memory management in Houdini, we have been forced to look into Linux for sim work. Currently we have installed Mint and Houdini 13, and have managed to map the DFS share on a Win2012 server to a folder, but we are completely stuck on being able to use the same hip files on both windows and linux due to differences in file paths/references etc. Is it possible to have some kind of middle-ground here, and if not, how do we work around it? Converting our entire backend and pipeline is not an option at this point. If you have experience from a mixed OS environment, please chime in.

Thanks,
Ole

I think you'll just want to make sure to set up env variables and/or relative paths… stuff like $HIP/geo/geo.$F4.bgeo will work on both windows and linux and resolve to the same place. You can also set up variables for other stuff, such as something like this.

$PROJECT
$SEQ
$SHOT

$BGEO = $PROJECT/$SEQ/$SHOT/caches/
$RENDERS = $PROJECT/$SEQ/$SHOT/renders/

Obviously your startup scripts will be slightly different on windows vs linux, but it's not that hard to set up.

Yes ,this is good idea.
I had same problem to manage some optional env variables with same path in the Win and Mint ,So I made some environment variables with same name and path but different style in both Mint and Win like :

Win :
$JKPath = “C:\\JKDir”

Linux :
$JKPath = “/media/sadjad/963084E43084CD25/JKDir”

and finally I used $JKPath in my project.

But I suggest to you create your environment variable in the houdini_setup_bash file in the installed directory (/opt/hfsxx.x.xx) instead of “Aliases/Variables” window in the Houdini.

Open houdini_setup_bash file and define your environment variable like below :

export JKPath = /media/sadjad/963084E43084CD25/JKDir

Hi Ole,

Are you using UNC paths on Windows? That allows you to map specific drives (which may be volatile) to static names.

This will make things a lot easier with a Windows/Linux mixed environment.

Lots of info on using UNC path in Windows on the net btw.

$HIP

Getting UNC paths to work in both linux and windows sounds like a good option. This way all software can use the same paths and work out of the box.

Than we can use hip and job and other usefull variables after unc paths is taken care of.

Anyone know a good way of using unc paths in windows/explorer? How to browse and getting correct unc paths.
To me shorcut sees to be the only way right now?

Thanks

I think in windows explorer you just need to use \\Server\Share\

Think add network location is what i was looking for.

It outputs full uncpath and is a charm to browse

Everything works fine now, but slashes are different in linux and windows.

In windows we cant use windows uncpaths in houdini, and in linux we cant use windows uncpaths. If we copy paste a link from explorer it wont work because of the slashes doesnt match.

Not impressed with linux/windows compability

So anyone managed to solve this issue?

Korhon
Everything works fine now, but slashes are different in linux and windows.

In windows we cant use windows uncpaths in houdini, and in linux we cant use windows uncpaths. If we copy paste a link from explorer it wont work because of the slashes doesnt match.

Not impressed with linux/windows compability

So anyone managed to solve this issue?

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=172&page=viewtopic&p=19792&sid=e2ab89204babddacd0d61fb28f9dad03 [sidefx.com]

Make sure to use forward slashes in both windows and linux.
It should work then.

win:
$BLA = //server/some/path

lin:
$BLA = /some/other/path

in houdini:
$BLA/file$F4.jpg