At the moment, a .zip file containing the basic Python libraries will be distributed alongside the Windows version of Blender (thus, on most cases doing a full Python install would not be necessary for running complex scripts). On Linux you are required to do a full Python install if you want to run complex scripts (but there is pretty high chance that Python is already installed on your computer, since Python is a defacto component on most Linux distros).
Yes, specially on the speed department. Many users (including myself) have reported that Blender loads and renders noticeable faster on Linux than in other operating systems. Please take note that no matter what operating system you are using, rendering from the command line is (on 99% of the cases) faster than rendering from the GUI.
Besides, considering consumed computer resources, Linux puts a lighter load on your CPU, thus leaving more free resources to be used for actual 3D work.
Your first stop should be the advices given at blenderartists.org/forum/forumdisplay.php
If those advices don't solve the problem then your next stop is checking if you are getting hardware acceleration for OpenGL operations (Blender uses OpenGL for all it's GUI drawing operations, so having an OpenGL accelerated graphic card truly does a difference when it comes to GUI response time. )
See wich GLX driver is been used on your system (more info on that bellow), if you get " Mesa GLX Indirect" it means that you are NOT using any hardware acceleration at all.
Check if your graphic card maker provides Linux drivers for your card. By replacing the general purpose Indirect Mesa driver with a driver made specifically for your card you could see speed increases up to 400% (my own experience) or maybe more.
Nvidia, Ati and many other graphic card manufacturers provide Linux specific drivers for their cards. Bear in mind that those speed increases might come at the cost of some stability issues.
Blender supports both mesa a proprietary glx drivers, but some users have reported buggy behavior coming from using those proprietary drivers, while other users have reported outstanding performance gains without any trouble.
No, as long as you have a working X system (Xorg/Xfree86/etc) and a OpenGL driver (see next question) you should be fine. There is no difference from using KDE, GNOME or whatever your desktop manager might be.
Within Blender, open a new text window and type in this:
from Blender.BGL import *
print "GL Vendor ", glGetString(GL_VENDOR)
print "GL Renderer", glGetString(GL_RENDERER)
print "GL Version ", glGetString(GL_VERSION)
Now press Alt-P or click on File -> Run Python Script. Go to your console and see what is written over there. If you find something like:
"Mesa GLX Indirect
Mesa project: www.mesa3d.org
1.3 Mesa 4.0.4"
then you are not using acceleration for your graphic card (noticed the "Indirect" word?). On the other hand, if you get something like:
"GeForce4 Ti 4200 with AGP8X/AGP/SSE2
NVIDIA Corporation
1.4.0 NVIDIA 43.63"
or like:
"GeForce2 MX/PCI/3DNOW!
NVIDIA Corporation
1.3.1 NVIDIA 31.23"
or even like:
"GL Vendor VA Linux Systems, Inc.
GL Renderer Mesa DRI Voodoo3 20010501 x86/MMX/3DNow!
GL Version 1.2 Mesa 3.4.2"
it means that you are using a real accelerated graphic driver.
Another way to find information about your current OpenGL setup is by using the glxinfo command, that will yield more technical oriented data about your system. Just be prepared to pipe the output trough a LESS command since glxinfo could be really articulated some times.
Actually there are 4 versions of Blender for Linux, two for x386 processors and two for PowerPC processors. For each processor family we have dynamic and statics flavors available. (2 x 2 = 4).
On a static build, all the system dependencies needed to run Blender are included, even a software based OpenGL environment. So if you are having dependencies errors or you are unable to find a proper OpenGL driver for your graphic card the static build should run on your system. You should consider a static built as a trouble-shooting/worst case scenario option.
On a dynamic build, the dependencies are not included, so Blender will use the libraries already installed and available on your system. Also, Blender will use any OpenGL accelerated driver that it might find on your system. Generally speaking, a dynamic build should be preferred over a static build.
Always make sure, despite your static or dynamic choice, to download the version that match your processor. If you have an Intel, AMD or Cyrix processor you should go with the x386 version. If you have a Mackintosh (or one of those rare Motorola CPUs) then you should go with the PPC version.
Blender uses OpenGL for all widgets and buttons and menus. This means Blender won't run well on some configurations of X11/driver combinations, especially when optimized for 3D gaming speed.
A common error is with using the SWCursor option with soft shadows, which can leave trails in Blender. Experiment with settings in your /etc/X11/XF86Config like these;
# NVidia specific options
Option "NoLogo" "0"
Option "SWCursor" "false"
Option "HWCursor" "true"
Option "CursorShadow" "true"
Another error with cursors leaving trails can be solved by adding the following line to your .Xresources by typing in a terminal (it seems you need to set it per user, doesn't work as system resource):
echo "Xcursor.core: 1" >> ~/.Xresources
Blender also requires normal buffer swapping, not optimized for speed, but based on copying the back buffer contents to the front buffer. You can set this in XF86Config by disabling the optimized buffer flipping;
Option "NoFlip" "1"
# ATI options
For ATI drivers, disable FSAA (full scene anti aliasing) that garbles up the screen.
This appears to be a known XFree86 bug. See the bugs section of XFree for details. The patch posted in Comment #4 of the above URL works for me.
Alternatively you can try:
export RADEON_NO_VTXFMT=1
or
export R200_NO_VTXFMT=1
Problem: Alt+A (play animation) or P (play game) in Blender 3D window views can cause Blender to terminate.
If blender is started in Fedora Core 2 by using an icon launcher from the Desktop or Panel with the "run in terminal" option selected, hot-key Alt+A or P will terminate Blender on the first or second instance of its use.
Solution #1: From a terminal(CLI) navigate to your Blender directory and start Blender with ./blender
Solution #2: Deselect "run in terminal" in the Blender Desktop or Panel launcher icon properties. Right click on the icon. Select "properties" from the dialogue box. Deselect the "run in terminal "option".
If you are getting this error it means that the glx extension is not enabled in /etc/X11/XF86Config.
GLX allows blender to access your 3d card and draw to the screen, but some distributions ship with GLX disabled.
It likely means that you just haven't got OpenGL installed or properly configured on your system. (It is also a symptom that you should review your 3D card setup in general).
Unfortunately there isn't a easy answer on how to enable it, since it varies from distro to distro.
As a general tip it could be said that most of the times a line that says "Load GLX" withing the Modules section of your Xfree86config file is involved. However, Your distro manual should point you in the right direction.
Yes. Every .blend made in any platform should open in any other platform. If you ever come across a .blend file that opens OK in a platform but won't open on another platform then you have officially found a bug and we would be most interested in hearing about it on our Bug tracker, located at projects.blender.org/tracker/
Try to run Blender with the startup option "-g noaudio". That disables game sounds, and should enable sound in the Blender UI.
Another reported fix is by installing (if it's not already) the libsdl1.2debian-all and then set the environment var:
export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=esd
No. A binary plug-in should be compiled specifically for the same platform where Blender is running (and usually for the same Blender version). If the plug-in has a .dll extension it is intended to be used on Windows, if it has a .so extension then it is compiled to run on Linux.
Fortunately, plug-ins are usually distributed on both .dll and .so forms. For a good repository of Blender binary plugs, take a look at www.blender3d.org/cms/Resources.181.0.html
Also, some binary plug-ins are distributed alongside with Blender, they are stored inside the "plugins" directory where you extracted Blender. The trick is that they are not compiled yet. Just go into that directory and type Make, everything else goes automatically from there. (of course you need to have gcc and make installed on your system, but those two are practically omnipresent on all distros).
No. If you install Blender under your home directory it would run just fine.
However, just like with any Linux program, installing the needed dependencies might (like in "could happen but is not sure") need root access.
Because the install process is so easy that even a 2 years old kid could do it.
Besides, distro makers sometimes make funky decisions about where to put what on their Linux version. So to be safe a manual install is the best choice (remember that I said it is a really easy process).
Short answer: the file you downloaded is a compressed folder, just uncompress it and run the blender executable from that directory.
Long answer: (not fully written, in the meanwhile read at www.blender.org/modules/documentation/htmlI/c217.html )
Most window manager programs trap user's key events and analyze them before sending to the running program. If the pressed hotkey is already assigned on the window manager it will never make it into the running program.
In other words, if you have a particular keyboard combination defined on your window manager, and Blender uses that same keyboard combination as a hotkey, the one defined on the window manager will prevail. KDE's window manager default configuration is known to have more than a few collisions with Blender's hotkeys.
Until the time comes when all Blender hotkeys are user configurable, your only choices are going into your Window Manger configuration and disabling or re-directing the offending hotkey; or trying to substitute the troublemaker hotkey with it's GUI counterpart (witch is not always feasible).
To access KDE's hot-key editor go into Control Center -> Regional Settings and Accessibility -> Keyboard Shortcuts
A special note should be made about the ~ hotkey (the one that toggles all your layers on/off). If that hot key isn't working for you, the Window Manager is not the one to be blamed, but your keyboard configuration:
For some non standard English configurations, that key is used as a modifier to input Latin characters, specially the ñ letter (ascii codes 164 and 165) used often in the Spanish language (like in "Piña Colada"). On those keyboard configurations, the ~ key event isn't treated as a keystroke on itself, but like a modifier for the next key that you press. Again, besides changing your keyboard configuration, there isn't much that could be done to fix it.
"Could not find platform independent libraries <prefix>"
"Could not find platform dependent libraries <exec_prefix>"
"Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to <prefix>[:<exec_prefix>]"
"'import site' failed; use -v for traceback"
"sys_init:warning - no sitedirs added from site module."
Those error messages all point in the same direction, a proper Python installation could not be found by Blender. Either you don't have Python installed, or you have and outdated version. At the time of this writing, Blender requires Python 2.3.
The error is non fatal, meaning that Blender will still open and work, but you'll be in trouble if you try to run a script that requires Python functions not already provided by Blender (file import/export scripts are good candidates for that).
Means that you need to install the C++ compatibility libraries. If you are on RedHat, that would be compat-libstdc++-*.rpm.
It means that at loading time Blender was unable to find it's locale translation files. When you uncompressed the file where blender is distributed, a small hidden directory called .blender was uncompressed as well. Just copy or move that directory to your home directory and the error should go away.
While you might not be interested in using the international translations options, I'm sure that you would be interested in using the many scripts that are distributed with Blender. Well, those scripts are stored inside .blender as well, so by copying that directory to your home directory you are solving two issues at the same time.
Before starting Blender export SDL_AUDIODRIVER:
$ export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=dma
$ blender
On the Internet:
The Internet is the preferred way for getting more information related to Blender, as well to participate in the user communities and stay tunned with the latest developments.
By face-to-face interaction:
Each year, the official Blender Conference is held in Amsterdam, usually around the end of October, where many of the community members gather to discuss new development proposals, to hear seminars given by known community members and people involved in the CG industry who are putting Blender to good use, among others activities. Also, there are the annual Blender Art Festival and the Suzanne Awards Ceremony where the most outstanding artworks and development contributions are prized.
At the same time that the official Conference is taking place, smaller conferences and informals get-together take place around the globe, organized by volunteer community members.
During Siggraph, each year small BOF sections are programmed, as well as information stands on the expo floor.
By books:
About once in a year, the Blender foundation releases a new documentation oriented book related to blender. By buying one of those books you help finance the Blender Foundation.
Others Blender books, not released by the BF, are available through mayor libraries like Barnes & Noble and Amazon. Besides English language, there are German and Japanese books available.
That would be me, Juan J. Pena M. (also known as Apollux). You can usually catch me around the forums mentioned on the previous answer, or you could reach me by e-mail me on jjulio.pena at verizon.net.do (just substitute the "at" with the @ sign, and no empty spaces in between).