There are many Linux distros, Mistika Workflows will work in some of them but not in others (or not out of the box), these are the basic installation guidelines on linux:
GPU: Requires a modern NVIDIA GPU (Kepler generation or later) with NVIDIA proprietary drivers installed:
* For physical machines install a modern NVIDIA proprietary driver ("Nouveau" drivers will not work), the more modern the better, but at least from July 2022.
* In the case of VM instances on AWS or other cloud providers you will need to install the "NVIDIA Datacenter driver". (a cuda driver is not enough, Mistika Workflows also requires an NVIDIA OpenCL / OpenGL active session). Basic "virtual" drivers or GPU emulation will not work. When running in a GPU partition (as most cloud services offer) Mistika Workflows requires the NVIDIA Datacenter driver installed.
You will also need to connect to the VM via remote desktop or VNC server with GPU support, such as x11vnc.
Mistika Workflows must be started in a graphics session (even if you only want to render), and it will stop working if that session is closed.
OS: Mistika Workflows 10.5.1 has been tested on CentOS 7.8. (other distros should work, but there is no warranty)
QT Version: QT 5. (QT 6 is planned but not yet supported. Distros that are too modern ( thus based on QT6 ) will not work with Mistika Workflows 10.5.1.
Python Version:
Mistika Workflows 10.6.2: Current Mistika Workflows version at the date of this document. Requires Python 2.7. Python 2.7 needs to come preinstalled in the distro or either be installed by the user. The Mistika Workflows installer will NOT install Python (it only does so on Windows).
Mistika Workflows 10.7 and later (currently in beta stage): Requires at least Python 3.11. The installation procedure in CentOS 7.8 is documented in this document, please contact support if needed.
Other hardware requisites explained in the Mistika Workflows supported configurations article.
Installation notes for Mistika Workflows 10.6 on CentOS 7.8 (and similar distros):
Note: The instructions below were about the installation process up to Mistika Workflows 10.6 version on linux. A newer Mistika Workflows version using Python 3.11 is already in beta stage, but the installer is still being developed.
1 - If not yet installed, install this extra packages BEFORE installing Mistika Workflows:
sudo yum install libcurl-devel
sudo yum install python-devel
sudo yum install openldap-devel
2 - Check if your linux distro comes with the required Python version installed, otherwise install it manually. The exact procedure depends on each distro.
A same linux system can have different Python versions coexisting and they can be in different locations. First step is to declare the environment variable MISTIKA_PYTHON to tell Mistika where it is. For the case of CentOS 7.8, a simple way is to include this line in the .bashrc file.
For python 2.7:
export MISTIKA_PYTHON="/usr/lib64/python2.7"
For python 3.11:
export MISTIKA_PYTHON="/usr/local/"
export MISTIKA_PYTHON_BIN_DIR="/usr/
2 - Install the NVIDIA proprietary driver, if not yet.
3 - Install Mistika Workflows. It needs to be installed as a normal user, NOT as root. Although it will ask for the root password during the process (it does so to install the license server, which is the only component that needs to run with root privileges).
Example installation session (after a "mistika" user downloads the software):
[mistika@mistika ~]$ cd Downloads
[mistika@mistika Downloads]$ chmod u+x MistikaWorkflows.10.5.1-20221011.Beta.Opt.linux-x64.run
[mistika@mistika Downloads]$ ./MistikaWorkflows.10.5.1-20221011.Beta.Opt.linux-x64.run
(a graphics installer will open at this point, asking for the root password. Enter the password and continue ...)
5 - Open the sgoActivationTool (its icon should have appeared in your desktop) and activate your activation code (or select your remote license server)
6 - Open Mistika Workflows, either with the icon or with the command line (recommended for getting more information about potential problems in the console):
"SGO Apps/Mistika Workflows/bin/workflows"
7 - If the application opens but some nodes do not work, check the Validation Panel (it shows user errors and missing actions), if the problem is more serious check the Window->Panels->Scrip Editor (among other things, it will show software errors and missing modules)
8 - Check that the preferences menu match your system. Specifically, if you are also using Mistika Ultima, make sure to select the same "shared" folder in the preferences menu, as it is where Workflows will look for display filters created in Mistika Ultima.