I would only ask you one question - why would you want to do that?
Not that I'm being smug, but Catia V5 is architected for Windows. I prefer AIX, but I'm not using it for the simple fact that it was engineered on a Windows platform, and the vast majority of the world uses it accordingly.
I guess what I'm really saying is, Linux (unlike AIX) is not a supported platform. If you are running Catia on Linux, you will be excluding yourself from receiving any support, either through IBM/Dassault, or other users on the forum. If you absolutely must get away from Windows, (which I can sympathize with) maybe try AIX. I got a sealed edition of AIX 5.2 on eBay for $35, and it has all of the GNU tools for Linux in the expansion packs. You also can choose CDE, Gnome, or KDE.
Would Catia run on X86 Solaris, I did my training for Catia V5 on Solaris (sparc) and it seemed to run very well on that platform (well, better than the prehistoric Pc I'm using).
As a point of note, we will shortly be switching from Windows to Solaris as a Ford manditory requirment (something to do with Ford Central Enginerring and C3P NG integration).
Solid7, is your AIX for X86 platform, if so does that run Catia?
Solaris 10 on x86 does not include the OpenGL Driver required for catia to install. This is available as a free download for the sparc platform but is not ported to x86 platform. It may be possible to use some other OpenGL driver but I have not tried.
I suspect that the only supported version of Solaris is for the Sparc, not for x86. DS is deeply linked with MS, and as such, they have been extremely unwilling to support anything on x86 except Windows.
And yes, CATIA V5 is optimized to run on an x86 platform using MS Windows. You can run it on the listed Unix Platforms, but you loose significant performance and functionality. That being said, we are currently running most of our users on IBM RS6000 model 275's, under AIX 5.1. It runs pretty well, other than the missing functionality, but this is a MUCH more expensive platform than the WinTel alternatives.
IBM / DS supports all OS and there is no specific optimization for Windows. It is true that it is developped on Windows OS but the fact that it runs better on Windows is only due to the fact that x86 machine are simply more poweful, unless you get the high-end UNIX machine, in this case you have even better performances than on Windows OS but it is far more costly.
The functionalities that do not exist on UNIX are missing but the technology has no equivalent (such as VBScript or OLE Link support).
You may also have to consider the 64-bits compliance. Windows XP 64-bits was released a few months ago while AIX 64-bits has been available for a while. The new CATIA release will be built for 64-bits machine, that is definitely worth investigating.
I completely disagree. According to DS, V5 is programmed and compiled in Windows. There is a "wrapper" that is built by Microsoft that captures the Windows OS calls, and substitues them with *nix calls.
In other words, CATIA running on *nix is doing an emulation. Any kind of emulation is going to be less effective than a direct execution. I am currently running CATIA V5 on both a high end AIX workstation (IBM RS6000 Model 275), and a high end Windows Laptop (IBM ThinkPad T42P). The (~$5,000) laptop runs circles around the (~$20,000) unix workstation.
As for 64-bit, I have done some experimentation with that also (R15 on AIX). It still has a LONG way to go before it can be rolled out to production. It has some severe limitations at R15. It will not talk to VPM/LCA. It cannot run any VBScript applications (VBScript, not VB or VBA which are Windows only).
No offense, but to say that Catia is supported on all OS's, in the way that is was presented, is utterly ridiculous. Catia/IBM/Dassault are VERY specific about hardware and software requirements. It is not a widely supported platform, and this becomes abundantly clear when you, yourself, are in charge of making the actual buying and building decisions. (as I am) I will *promise* you, that Catia is NOT supported on every OS under the sun. Will it work on all of them? Maybe - I have no clue. But don't call up your Catia rep and expect to get any help for any of the OS's not listed in my previous post. They are not supported by either the LUM, or Catia, and you're asking for trouble if you don't follow the instructions.
There are some very big corporations that dumped billions into AIX machines, servers, and IT support for Catia V4. All of that infrastructure would have transistioned well into the implementation of V5, had it been the right set of tools for the job. But guess what? Buying a used RS6000 has never been cheaper! New Intellistation Power series (replacement for RS6000) are still just as expensive. Logic rules the day, on that one.
I also have both Windows and Unix, using Intellistation and RS6000. As Jim said, the Windows machine is greased lightning compared to the UNIX, even with the reduced instruction set of the RS6000. That tells me clearly that the architecture greatly favors Windows, and it ought to be run where it's happy. (like it or not - not my concern - the fact is, it's Windows software FIRST AND FOREMOST)
I'm not a big fan of Microsoft - if you have to go under the covers Unix systems are MUCH easier to work with - but I've run Catia V5 on both Windows and AIX and agree with what the others have said: V5 is much more optimised towards working in Windows (so long as you have 2k or XP). We initially looked at running V5 on AIX machines, but are now swapping over to PCs as fast as we can get budget.
Much as I like the Unix operating system, for Catia V5 you really need a good reason for working with anything bar Windows.
"Pinky, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Yes, Brain, but isn't that dangerous?"
Well, everything its related with the type of your work. If you are just modelling some parts or creating small assemblies, its OK with Windows because you can have also those big advantages related with this OS (scripting, easy to use, good interface with other softwares, a.s.o.).
But believe me, when you have to load nearly a whole aircraft section (only primary and secondary structure) you can loose your minds waiting to be able to work in assembly workbench.
So, thats why (in my opinion) big aircraft companies are working with UNIX (even on new computers). And you can be sure that UNIX will not crash so frequently like Windows and loose a lot of work if you forgot to save from time to time (I mean when you have something really hard to do).
On the other hand, UNIX is not so exposed to viruses or other "intruders".
What big aircraft companies are running V5 on Unix?
I worked for 2 of the biggest, and they no longer use Unix, but have switched to Windows.
You won't lose your mind waiting for large assemblies if you have proper graphics adaptors, and sufficient memory. That's true with any system, though, isn't it?
Again - no matter what software you are talking about, you are NOT going to get it to perform better on ANYTHING, than the platform for which it was optimized. (created for)
If anyone still has doubts, I have an aquaintance (or two) with IBM that would be happy to clear up the confusion. I speak with some authority on this issue, because I went through this myself, not wanting to switch to Windows.
Cessna is currently using a mix of Unix and Windows. Our VPM users still use Unix, for the most part. But that is not because of system capability, it is because we chose not to change the VPM interface for our users when we implemented V5. One change at a time was enough.
We also had significant problems with installing the ENOVIA Portal, getting it to work reliably, and its user interface in general. That said, it has come a long way in the past 2 years since we started engineering in V5, and we are looking to move towards a Windows environment in the relatively near future.
As far as loading large portions of the aircraft, I have had MUCH more luck with large DMU sessions on Windows than I have had on Unix. On the Windows platform they load faster, I can load more parts, and it is more usable when they are loaded (better frame rates).
In the company I work for, we operate a half-way house between Unix and Windows for largish assemblies (10,000 to 15,000 instances): we still perform our server based operations such as automated clash detections, aircraft zoning, etc. on Unix, but the interactive sessions have now moved over almost entirely to Windows.
While we had some performance issues with maximum session size on the Windows machines initially, adding as much RAM as we could (we already used a released cache and had optimised the Catia V5 settings), largely solved these problems. The users tell us that performance is now better than on the old Unix boxes, especially in terms of load speed, interactive clashing, etc.
"Pinky, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Yes, Brain, but isn't that dangerous?"
That was exactly my point... (about the graphics and RAM)
We had the same problem, too. Large assemblies crash out when you cheap (especially) on graphics and video memory. RAM is so cheap these days, and I buy my equipment off-lease, since I have a small operation. Big corporations have not switched completely off Unix because many have not reached ROI - Couple equipment costs with IT staffing cost, and you are talking 3rd world economies!
For less than $2500, I got an Intellistation ZPro, 3.2GHz Xeon, with 3 GB RAM, and Invidia Quadro FX3000 graphics, and DVD multi-burner. This machine absolutely blazes, and I have never had Catia issues with it, other than known bugs. I use it also as my central license server on a small network, and it runs that very well, also.
DS has certainly got ports of Catia that run on Linux but as far as I know these have never been released. Quite possibly for two main reasons:- Hardware/OS configuration and commercial issues.
And whilst LUM will run on Linux the IBM key centers will not produce keys for it.
Many of you refer to larde assemblies without defining what you mean in greater detail. Our assemblies are also large but our problem is that we deal with say 5000 variants of an element/product in an assembly.
So far It is not really practical to work with the whole assy because of win32 memory address space limitation (3GB).
Any of you guys managed to get catia to utilize more than 3GB on a win64 architecture?
Would this be a benefit compared to running Catia on Windows?
