HOWTO: Installing Maya 7.0

[szr4321]

This thread is about installing Alias Wavefront Maya 7.0 on Ubuntu, tested on Hoary 5.04.

It's based on johannes' thread about Maya 6.5.

The instructions are very similar for Autodesk Maya 8.0 and 8.5 (tested on Feisty 7.04). Thanks to ZombieAcademy for providing these hints.
You only need to adjust the filenames when installing the packages.

Install the following programs, in case you don't already have them:

apt-get install csh alien

Copy over all rpm installation files to a local directory.
We need to convert the rpm-packages to debian format using alien. Change to the directory that holds your rpms and run:

for i in *.rpm; do sudo alien -cv $i; done

This will take some time.
(fragmental reported that he had problems running alien on a FAT filesystem, so better don't try that.)
To make Maya install without problems later, we need to create the following link, even though /usr/aw doesn't exist yet:

sudo ln -s /usr/aw /aw

For Maya 8.0 / 8.5, you also need to run

sudo ln -s /usr/autodesk /autodesk

Now we're ready to install the Maya packages:
(Change the filenames according to your version. Also have a look at the update at the end of this howto.)

sudo dpkg -i awcommon-server_9.5-2_i386.deb

For Maya 8.0 / 8.5, you can ignore the warning about chkconfig not being found. Now, run

sudo dpkg -i awcommon_9.5-2_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i maya7-0_7.0-375_i386.deb

Now you need to install your license file (aw.dat).
Copy it over to /var/flexlm (create this directory if it doesn't exist):

sudo cp aw.dat /var/flexlm

Make sure Maya has read-access to this file.
I didn't need to install aksusbd*.deb.
To stop Maya from complaining at startup about not being able to create a log file, run

sudo mkdir /usr/tmp
sudo chmod 777 /usr/tmp

You should be able to run Maya now by running:

maya

DinoeL noted that to fix the error

/aw/maya7.0/bin/maya.bin: /aw/maya7.0/lib/libgcc_s.so.1: version `GCC_4.2.0' not found (required by /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6)

you need to create some symlinks (only if you get the error above!):

sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5 /usr/aw/maya/lib/libstdc++.so.5
sudo ln -sf /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 /usr/aw/maya/lib/libgcc_s.so.1

In case you get the error "Can't Find libXp.so.6", you need to install libxp6 (thanks to Rixeh for this):

apt-get install libxp6

Should you get the error "/aw/COM/bin/installKey: error while loading shared libraries: libXm.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory":

apt-get install libmotif3

To install the documentation files (optional step), run:

sudo dpkg -i maya7-0-docs-en-us_7.0-381_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i maya7-0-docserver_7.0-381_i386.deb

You can start up and shut down the documentation server using

/usr/aw/maya/docs/startDocServer.sh
/usr/aw/maya/docs/shutdownDocServer.sh

To make the documentation server start up at boot time, create the script /etc/init.d/maya-doc-server (as root) with the following content:

#! /bin/sh
#
# maya-doc-server
#
# Starts and stops the Maya Documentation Server
#
set -e
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
PATH=$PATH:/usr/aw/maya/docs
DESC="Maya Documentation Server"
NAME=maya-doc-server
SCRIPTNAME=/etc/init.d/$NAME
case "$1" in
start)
echo -n "Starting $DESC"
startDocServer.sh
echo "."
;;
stop)
echo -n "Stopping $DESC"
shutdownDocServer.sh
echo "."
;;
restart|force-reload)
echo -n "Restarting $DESC"
shutdownDocServer.sh
startDocServer.sh
echo "."
;;
*)
echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|restart|force-reload}" >&2
exit 1
;;
esac
exit 0

Now run

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/maya-doc-server
sudo update-rc.d maya-doc-server defaults

That should basically be all you need for a proper Maya installation on Ubuntu. Let me know if it worked for you!

I had big trouble running Maya and having the X composite extension enabled at the same time (using an nVidia card and current drivers): all titlebars disappeared. Apparently I'm not the only one with this problem, so better disable compositing when using Maya. There's another post on the Autodesk forum that might be helpful (thanks, Bart Simpson 18 ).
Additionally, my window display got garbled when scrolling. For me it worked to add the following section to /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

Section "Extensions"
  Option "Composite" "Disable"
EndSection

You need to restart your X server to use these new settings. Compiz / Beryl probably won't work anymore because of this.

By default, [Alt] + mouse moves windows in Gnome. However, for Maya you need the Alt-key for rotation, zooming etc.
You can change the key binding to move windows in the Gnome settings. For example, set it to the Super-key, which corresponds to the Windows-key.

If you get font errors (e.g. "Error: Failed trying to load font : -*-helvetica-bold-r-normal--10-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-"), you might want to check your xorg.conf; especially if you've got an ATI driver installed: some users reported that this driver messes up the font paths.

If Maya segfaults on startup, you should double-check your license file.

mattb reported a problem using the TextCurve tool (Create -> Text) in the Maya 6.5 thread (Maya doesn't find the font files). I'm not aware of a solution to this right now.

Alias provides a set of "Bonus Tools" which might be interesting for some of you. Just convert and install the rpm in the same way as above.

Meanwhile, Alias released an update, Maya 7.01. You'll need a bronze account to download, but that only means you'll have to register there (for free). This update includes all the rpms to install Maya.

There is also a download for Maya 8.5 Service Pack 1.

A cursor issue can be fixed by running

export MAYA_MMSET_DEFAULT_XCURSOR=1

(Thanks to endymon for this hint.)