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Playing with Blender For Artists (Bforartists) - Easier way to learn Blender?
vtsteam:
This is great! :proj:
I do something similar in reverse, sorveltaja. But my main OS is Linux. My choices are Puppy Linux running ten year old Google SketchUp as a CAD on either WINE (native Win substitution, not a VM) or AQEMU (a VM running Win 7).
Under AQEMU I get near native OS speeds using the KVM accelerator. I do like using WINE better when I can because then Windows programs are running natively within Linux. I'm not jumping back and forth into a VM from Linux. But my latest laptop is so new that SketchUp in WINE has a graphics bug that means I need to go the VM route. My older computers ran WINE/SketchUP seamlessly.
It sounds like you will be running Linux in a VM on Win10, and then a Linux version of Blender? Or are you actually installing Linux on your computer as the main OS?
vtsteam:
Sounds like you've found a Linux distro you like. But I can't help also making a suggestion of Puppy Linux, and specifically (for newish computers) a version of it called F96-CE.
One interesting thing about Puppy is that you can install the whole operating system as a simple directory within your main OS. You you can dual boot at startup into either your original OS or Puppy. You do not have to reformat your hard drive for Puppy Linux, unlike most Linuxs. This is called a "Frugal" install in Puppy lingo. And in fact it's the preferred method of installation.
In fact, that directory doesn't have to even reside on the main hard drive. It can be on a thumb drive. That gives you a completely portable operating system that can be plugged into another computer. And the speed of the OS isn't hampered by the speed of the thumb drive, because at boot time the OS is copied into RAM, and then operates from there. It's extremely compact. Of course you can add whatever browser or application like Blender you want to that base OS.
Anyway, I like the OS. I've been using it for nearly 20 years.
(Later... out of curiosity I just looked up Blender on the Puppy Linux forum and found a portable app (which is a piece of cake to install) set up with an older version of Blender 3.1. So I tried it, and here's the initial screen:
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
(pps.. I tried Waterfox also from the original website, but it crashed when trying Youtube. I see there's a Waterfox development note on that bug...)
sorveltaja:
--- Quote from: vtsteam on May 22, 2025, 10:20:48 AM ---It sounds like you will be running Linux in a VM on Win10, and then a Linux version of Blender? Or are you actually installing Linux on your computer as the main OS?
--- End quote ---
W7 has still been my daily driver, as it has programs like Rhinoceros and a bunch of other smaller tools installed. W10 installation is on another ssd disk, mainly for testing/using software that doesn't support W7.
I had yet another ssd lying around, and decided to dedicate it for Pop OS. At the same time, I've looked for Linux alternatives for those that I used in Windows. Programs like browsers mentioned, e-mail(Thunderbird), VLC, and Wings 3D are already cross-platform ones.
But for image editors, Paint Shop Pro 8 is by far my favorite tool; somehow I managed to install and get it to work in Wine. It has one limitation, though: images on clipboard can't be pasted to it, perhaps because it is "sandbox", or isolated process inside Wine. So I installed Gimp where screenshots can be saved, and then opened in Psp.
Yeah, I also tested Puppy in VM(don't remember which flavor), and noticed it had older version of Blender available. Maybe different versions of software can be selected and installed using command line?
Anyway, I've used Puppy from usb stick in the past for things like looking what kind of hidden files W10 partitions have, or simply formatting usb sticks, if it hasn't worked in Windows.
In the end, I never thought of seeing a day when I'd prefer to have Linux as a companion OS with Windows :beer:.
vtsteam:
Pretty sure I could get late versions of Blender going in Puppy with a little look tonight. There just wasn't the call for it, probably before. I can dual boot on all my Puppy computers into Win 7, since there were many useful oddball programs for that version, and it was relatively tame re. invasiveness. I also have it in a QEMU VM, as I mentioned before. I'll take a look at late Blender this evening.
vtsteam:
Tried 4.4.3 Blender for Linux.
No need for terminal commands to install it. It's a self contained app, you just download it from the website, unpack it and click on the launcher file in the unpacked folder to start it.
But in my case (with this laptop) it says my video card is unsupported. Probably related to the fact that the version of Puppy Linux I'm using is a few years old, and the computer very new.
However I also downloaded Blender LTS (Long Term Service) version 3.6.22 still current, and that one opens fine in my version of Puppy Linux and my laptop:
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