So, we came across this issue getting Houdini 11 to run on RHEL 5.5. Whenever we launched Houdini (after setting up environment variables and such), it would crash, spitting out the following error:

Could not find platform independent libraries <prefix>
Could not find platform dependent libraries <exec_prefix>
Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to <prefix>
'import site' failed; use -v for traceback
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “<string>”, line 3, in <module>
File “/home/prisms/builder-new/Nightly11.0/dev/hfs/houdini/python2.6libs/hou.py”, line 19, in <module>
import new
ImportError: No module named new
PyClerk: Cannot import traceback module to generate backtrace.
PyClerk: No getName() method found
PyClerk: Cannot import traceback module to generate backtrace.
PyClerk: No getName() method found
PyClerk: Cannot import traceback module to generate backtrace.
PyClerk: No getName() method found
PyClerk: Cannot import traceback module to generate backtrace.
PyClerk: No getName() method found
$ terminate called after throwing an instance of ‘HOM_Error’
(sent by pid 20059)Internal abort
Saving application data to /tmp/rydalchc.20059.hip
Crash log saved to /tmp/crashlog_rydalchc
Error running Python atexit callback:
Cannot import traceback module to generate backtrace.

The fix we found is to set HOUDINI_USE_HFS_PYTHON to 1, and that will use internal python. I figured I'd post it here, as I couldn't find anything as I searched in the fourm for this error.

Holy “%#”% ! I've been wrestling with this for the past hour.
Your're a life-saver! Thank you!

O dear, RHEL5.x supports only python 2.4, not 2.6 which is default in H11. Have you tried to set HOUDINI_PYTHON_VERSION by chance? (albeit if I'm not wrong 2.5 is a lowest Houdini can handle). There must be some rpms with newer python for RH out there.

We have same issues with Fedora, which is a PITA after using ubuntu for a couple of years. Never the right library version, and various pythons stepping one on each other. F11 supports only 2.7. Add to this Nuke, Maya, Qt and troubles guaranteed.

Many thanks for the post, goldleaf!!
I have just installed Fedora 14 over here (which also uses Python 2.7) and had the same issue when I started to add any environment variable (it would only launch in a clean shell).

You have saved my morning..!

Most appreciated. Was redirected here from the Naiad forum and this works a treat. The problem only occurred after installing Spotify… Had Naiad, Nuke, and Maya installed along side Houdini for ages with no issues, go figure. Thanks!