Carrara 5.0 on Linux

Wine is a set of programs designed to reproduce on Linux a Windows environment. In this environment, software written for the Windows OS can be executed as if it were truly installed on Windows.

Wine is not an emulator. Emulators translate software commands from one language to the other. This extra step noticeably slows down performance. Wine simulates almost completely the Windows OS environment, so that there is, in theory, no slow-down.

In 2003 we used Wine in mixed mode. In mixed  mode, the hard disk must be partitioned and Windows must be installed on the Windows partition. Carrara must also be installed on the Windows partition. Once this is done, it is possible to reboot on the Linux partition and (using Wine under Linux) to execute the copy of Carrara installed on the Windows partition.

The main factor is that a full installation of Windows is available, thus Wine can directly call (on the Windows partition) some Windows components that were not simulated by Wine. The main (and nearly only advantage is that some software that doesn't execute on Wine in strict mode executes in mixed mode.

The main (but not sole) drawback is that it is necessary to own a Windows license which, as everybody knows, is not free.

For our new test, we decided on the strict mode. in this mode we can use on linux Windows software without giving a penny to Bill Gates.

In our test, we used a computer having, for historic reasons, a double Linux-Windows 2000 partition, but the Windows partition is not used in our test.  The result would thus be exactly the same on a computer solely equipped with Linux.

Configuration

Our test was done on a computer with an ASUS A7V8-X motherboard, an AMD Athlon XP 2000+ processor and 1 Gb of RAM.

Software was OpenSuSE 10.2 (selected for its great hardware compatibility and its widespread community support) with kernel 2.6.15.2. Since Wine is primarily targeting Windows-refugees, the KDE 3.5.5 desktop was chosen rather than Gnome.
The Wine version was the last stable available, dated 2007-01-15.
Carrara is version 5.0 directly from the installation CD.

Installation

Our 2003 test was difficult to set-up. The 2007 one surprised us with its ease. Wine was so successfully updated that it took no more than 10 minutes between the Wine installation and the execution of Carrara. This is roughly the time necessary to install Carrara on Windows itself.

We won't comment on Linux installation itself since it is out of scope of this tutorial. Let's simply say that it now requires less time to install Linux than Windows. We didn't encounter any difficulty, all our hardware (from the video card to the USB key) was natively recognized at installation.

The first step of our test is the Wine setup. The package (the equivalent of Windows "setup.exe" files) is available by download and is less than 15 Mb.

This step is no more difficult than saying 'Daddy, Mummy" using Yast, the package manager in SuSE.

Once Wine is installed, it is necessary to use Carrara to install a redistributable Microsoft dll : Visual C runtime (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q259403 ).

For this, just download the library and click on the file. Linux asks which software we want to use to open the file. Enter "wine" and check the "Associate this kind of file to this software" checkbox (this will avoid the question to pop-up each time we want to launch Carrara).  Be careful : the dll installs without any confirmation message either during or at the end of the installation. Have no worry and go on to the next step.

Insert the Carrara CD-ROM. With the Linux native file explorer (Konqueror for example), find the "setup.exe" file on the Carrara 5.0 folder (do not use the "setup.exe" file on the root of the CD-ROM since this just adds an extra step). If you checked the checkbox at the previous step, Carrara 5.0 setup starts immediately; if not, enter "wine"  when Linux asks which software you want to use to open the file.

Image 1 : Carrara 5 set-up ready

From this point on there is no difference from an installation under Windows OS. Enter your Carrara registration code and finish the installation as you would do on Windows.

Image 2 : Serial request
Image 3 : Installation running ...

Test result

To launch Carrara, you must first find out where Wine installed Carrara. Wine sets up software in a Linux folder generally in the "/home" folder of the user. In our case, Wine was installed by a user called "notroot". Carrara exe file is thus in folder : "/home/notroot/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Eovia/Carrara 5".
Open this folder with your Linux file explorer and find the "Carrara.exe" file. Double-click (or enter "wine" when the system asks which software you want to use to open it).
You can create a desktop shortcut for a quicker access in the future.

Image 4 : Where is the Carrara 5.0 .exe file ?

During our tests, we met no problem (if you do, please inform us by filling out the form beneath).

We were able to open Carrara files, to create objects and scenes, to shade, to animate and to back-up our .car files on the Linux partition.

We observed no slow-down compared to Carrara on Windows on the same computer.

Image 5 : Carrara 5.0 running on Linux OpenSuSE 10.2

Our conclusion is that Carrara 5.0 is not only fully compatible with Linux, but that it is as speedy. Thus it is possible to use Carrara on Linux for professional use, on linux alone, without ever installing MicroSoft Windows.

(Nota : MS Windows a a trade mark of a deprecated piece of software that used to be widely appreciated in the 90', for an unknown reason ;-)