Linux Used To Make "Star Trek, Nemesis"

Mike McCune writes "The "Linux Journal" has a nice article about the switch from Irix to Linux at Digital Domain and the use of Linux in 'Star Trek, Nemesis.' I guess this means that Linux is finally ready for 'The Enterprise.'"

The deeper meaning of switching from Irix to Linux

[Frothy Walrus]

When companies switch from Irix to Linux, it means one of two things:

* they bought new SGI workstations, which run Linux, OR
* they couldn't afford SGI workstations, so they bought other Intel workstations with Linux.

It's not an amazing breakthrough jump. It's just that SGI barely sells Irix machines anymore.

proves that once you have the application

[zenst]

The only thing that holds ANY OS or hardware back is applications. Given how well and cheaply a cluster of linux box's can be put together its only a matter of time before people start adopting it. Also the like of MQSERIES (now part of websphere unfortunatly) are available on linux and offer a very simple way to migrate legacy CICS applications or parts of from expensive mainframes, and in a reliable assured way.

Ho hum, whatever....

[Profane Motherfucker]

Here's the deal: a switch from IRIX to Linux doesn't mean a fucking thing. They've switched from one variant of Unix to another. What was gained in the end? A net gain overall for Unix of not a fucking thing. Zero.

If they switched from Windows- or Mac-based machines, then this would be legit. Other than that it's meaningless in the sense of Linux is Taking Over.

That's all fine and great that it makes for a good story, but if the point is to claim that somehow people are realizing the benefits of Unix-derived operating systems, then it means squat.

Re:The deeper meaning of switching from Irix to Li

[mondoterrifico]

Did you read the article? Guess not.

"It ran three times faster on our Linux Alphas than on our IRIX SGI machines"

The switch to linux was based on performance issues.

Slashbots, should read the article before posting.

Re:The deeper meaning of switching from Irix to Li

[Twirlip of the Mists]

The reason SGI is probably selling less Irix machines is that Linux is available, cheaper, and does what buyers want.

No. Five years ago, SGI was selling fewer IRIX machines because Windows NT was available, cheaper, and did what buyers wanted. Two years ago, it was because Windows 2000 was available, cheaper, and did what buyers wanted. Last year it was Linux. This year it's Mac OS X. Who knows what it will be next year?

The fact that Linux is displacing IRIX in a lot of cases says much more about SGI than it does about Linux.

Re:One of the first big movies to use Linux was...

[Reality Master 101]

What's so "astounding" about it? Linux is just an operating system. It runs programs. It provides disk I/O. It does not do rendering. It's the applications that do anything "astounding".

In other words, all this really proves is that the operating system is pretty much irrelevent for this sort of work, not that Linux is particularly suited to it (other than being inexpensive).

Please boycott Digital Domain.

[Sir_Ace]

It's no secret I was the one who took over the linux projects at Digital Domain, and set up thier render farms. I created the Intel render farms, using Slackware, and I even got Patrick Volkerding to write a boot loader for the SGI 320's and 540's so we could run it on our workstations too.
I took the alpha render farm, revamped it to an NFS-root diskless cluster running Alpha-Slack. I worked on it for a year and a half, and I took a vacation and was let go WHILE I was on vacation.
Michael Taylor, and Jeff Stringer took credit for my work, and my ideas. Both constantly stood in the way of progress on anything that had to do with linux while I was there, and neither deserves any of the credit they have recieved for my work.
I ask that the entire slashdot community boycott any film, even remotely worked on by Digital Domain, it is a 20th century sweat shop located in Venice, California.
-- Sir Ace

It's Moore's Law you boobs!

[RageEX]

When making perf. statements these kind of articles are always misleading. They upgraded from old SGI hardware running IRIX to new *whatever* hardware running LINUX. Yeah, I'm sure all your perf. belong to LINUX.

Re:Grooooaaannn!

[Linux Freak]

That urge can be fought. We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands! But we can stop it. We can admit that we're killers...but we're not going to kill...today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill...today!