[egmehl]

That is the downside to Linux unfortunately, it can be pretty intimidating if you are new to it. Luckily (?) I learned it back when I had lots of time on my hands and no money, so it was a good fit.

[kami]

You can shave off a little extra cost from a node by using Linux (so no Windows license) and even leaving out the hard drive and booting via PXE from a server (or workstation I guess) - search for how to setup diskless linux for the details. Plus you get the happy side effect of only maintaining one computer since all the nodes boot from the same source.

Maxwell runs great on Linux, plus you get to save about 2gb ram that windows eats up by itself (my linux nodes use 300mb ram when idle)

Makes the option of using 2 quad core machines for every hex core machine even more cost effective.

And no, I don't make any money from Linux Just a happy user.

That sounds pretty interesting!
Where do the nodes store their temp files? All onto the network then?

[egmehl]

Yup, everything is stored back to the server. Basically you have a directory on the server and you are tricking the nodes into thinking that directory is their root, locally mounted disk. You do have to be a little careful with some things so multiple nodes aren't overwriting the same file. I didn't have any troubles with Maxwell in this regard, but Deadline render manager needed a couple tweaks.

Here's the link I used to set it up - looks intimidating but it's fairly step-by-step. Though I don't recommend trying it out the first time if you have a deadline!
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DisklessUbuntuHowto

For those of you who have used the RenderPro from Boxx, do they come with Windows, or can you put anything on them?

[CodyKallas]

Yup, everything is stored back to the server. Basically you have a directory on the server and you are tricking the nodes into thinking that directory is their root, locally mounted disk. You do have to be a little careful with some things so multiple nodes aren't overwriting the same file. I didn't have any troubles with Maxwell in this regard, but Deadline render manager needed a couple tweaks.

Here's the link I used to set it up - looks intimidating but it's fairly step-by-step. Though I don't recommend trying it out the first time if you have a deadline!
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DisklessUbuntuHowto

For those of you who have used the RenderPro from Boxx, do they come with Windows, or can you put anything on them?

They come with windows on them.

Dont see why you couldn't change that.