AppImage, Flatpak or Snap for Linux

[Anonymous]

It would be great if Autodesk could provide us with an AppImage, Flatpak or Snap package as those bundle all the dependencies within and are developed specifically to make it easier to distribute and support software across the wide variety of Linux Distros.

I know that out of all Linux distros officially only RHEL and CentOS are supported. However while they may be popular in VFX industry and studios these distros are not very popular among general public and desktop users. Other distributions like Debian based Ubuntu, Mint, PopOS and similar or Manjaro and Fedora dominate and push Linux Desktop.

Currently it is possible to install Maya on, say, Ubuntu, but it requires a lengthy script that will fix dependencies errors as well as some other things like environment variables. This script needs to be updated for each version of Maya and each version of host OS which makes it a tedious process. And of course it's not supported by Autodesk.

A lot of users, myself included, would love to switch their workstations to Linux for it's performance and stability or other reasons, but can't currently do this because a lot of the professional software in this area is either not accessible on Linux or is hard to install and maintain. 

Simplifying Maya installation and supporting wider variety of Linux Distros would be a huge step in this direction. Linux is now gaining a lot in popularity and made huge leaps in Desktop area in the past years already making it a viable platform for a lot of desktop users and professionals.

[Anonymous]

I was just looking for exactly this. Had a nightmare even getting it working normally when on supported distributions.

Licensing is also silly not letting a monthly subscription user from using Linux as their default platform. I have to alternate between my MacBook pro and my linux workstation but would prefer to use the linux workstation as its got much beefier components.

We paid for a license why not let a user use linux if they want to, it seems dumb requiring a network license as well to run linux.

I work for a game studio in SF.

[chriswhy]

Since CentOS 8 was killed off last year (it no longer receives updates) and CentOS 7 only receives maintenance updates now, and only for a couple more years, Autodesk will soon need to decide: will they only support Red Hat Enterprise Linux, will they return to supporting Ubuntu LTS again, or will they expand support to everyone else using Flatpak or AppImage? I would say either of the second two options would certainly be preferable, instead of having all CentOS users to switch to a paid operating system and for everyone else to just self-support.

[ben4SYMB]

sudo dnf install mesa-libGLw

sudo dnf install mesa-libGLU

sudo dnf install libXp

sudo dnf install libXmu

sudo dnf install libXt

sudo dnf install libXi

sudo dnf install libXext

sudo dnf install libX11

sudo dnf install libXinerama

sudo dnf install libXau

sudo dnf install libxcb

sudo dnf install libXScrnSaver

sudo dnf install gamin

sudo dnf install audiofile

sudo dnf install audiofile-devel

sudo dnf install e2fsprogs-libs

sudo dnf install libxkbcommon-x11

sudo dnf install xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-1-100dpi

sudo dnf install xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-1-75dpi

sudo dnf install liberation-mono-fonts

sudo dnf install liberation-fonts-common

sudo dnf install liberation-sans-fonts

sudo dnf install liberation-serif-fonts

sudo dnf install ncurses-compat-libs

sudo dnf install compat-openssl10

sudo dnf install libpng15

sudo dnf install libnsl

sudo dnf install nss

sudo dnf install glibc

sudo dnf install zlib

sudo dnf install libSM

sudo dnf install libICE

These dependencies are a nightmare to install even on rhel. I have successfully installed it on fedora, Ubuntu, rhel 8, and centos stream 9.

A flatpak option would be amazing! Installing Maya successfully on linux literally gives me a migraine every time haha

[heiko.sigle]

+1

[gtwidlansky]

+1

[jero_rigger]

+1

[meA63UN]

+1

This is far from a modern Linux install for a modern program. Let's put some effort in!

[odpaterson5NPU7]

+1

In the last year it's become clear that Windows 11 has become a liability for our studio, with one recent mandatory update breaking our Entra login which broke the start menu as well as all office365 (now copilot 365?) apps and defender on several laptops.

I've been looking at the feasibility of moving to Linux, and things don't look good for Maya. While it looks like Autodesk does support Linux, it seems to require A LOT of faffing in the terminal to find missing dependencies. This just isn't viable for a small studio to contend with, and so naturally this makes Blender an even more attractive proposition.

Please don't make me port all of our tools to Blender.

[blendernoob64]

As someone who has been researching and documenting Maya on unsupported distros like Fedora, Arch, and Bazzite, a flatpak or AppImage, or distrobox image or simply more statically linked libraries will make the installation process so much better. With Windows 11 being the worst OS for artists, and how Linux is gaining a ton of usage from disgruntled power users, and students, Autodesk really needs to take the Linux crowd more seriously. Once Maya works on Linux, the environment is so much nicer than working on Windows or Mac, with an easier to understand layout and better Python usage thanks to tools like Neovim. The fact that Disney, Pixar and so many other VFX studios main Linux for making art is reason alone to expand Linux support beyond RHEL and Rocky (even if it’s not hard to tweak Rocky to be more modern for general use)

[1464657462]

+1 cachyos

[managementR59Y9]

+1 CachyOS
It's very difficult to install Maya on popular unsupported distros like those mentioned above me, let alone getting Maya >=2025 to work properly on Wayland without black viewport or video memory leaks. I'd love to see some improvement on this and simplification of the software installation process. The Linux market share is gradually growing overtime with how badly Windows has become and amount of distractions that came with it. In my opinion, Linux is a much more productive environment for normal users and enthusiast who just wanted to get their work done.

I've personally just recently moved to Linux at the start of this year and it's been great, a much more snappy operating system that doesn't boils you with ads or using up those precious RAM and compute wastefully. Please address this issue, thanks!