Is Animux free? Can I use it for paid work? Yes and yes. Animux and its programs are free and open source. Your films, images and models belong to you. See Licences.
Do I have to know Linux? No. This guide explains everything from the start. You need the terminal for only a few jobs, and the guide gives the full command each time.
Will Animux delete Windows? Not unless you tell the installer to. The live session and virtual machines change nothing. When installing, choose Install alongside to keep Windows.
Can I open my Maya / 3ds Max / Cinema 4D / After Effects files? Not directly. Export them from the old program as FBX, OBJ, USD or Alembic and import them in Blender. Images and videos (PNG, EXR, MP4) work everywhere.
Does Animux have Photoshop, Toon Boom, Maya or After Effects? No, those are commercial programs for Windows and macOS. Animux has free alternatives: Krita/GIMP (painting, photos), Pencil2D/Synfig/Krita (2D animation), Blender (3D, compositing), Kdenlive (editing). DaVinci Resolve can be installed: Adding software.
Which program should I learn first? For 2D: Pencil2D, then Krita or Synfig. For 3D: Blender. For editing: Kdenlive. Follow the tutorials in order.
Can Blender render on my graphics card? With an NVIDIA card and NVIDIA's driver (CUDA/OptiX) or an AMD card with ROCm (HIP), yes. Without them, Blender renders on the processor, which always works. See Adding software.
Why is Blender 5 and not Debian's Blender 3.4? Debian 12's Blender is from 2022. Animux packages the official Blender 5.2 LTS release from blender.org.
Can I use a drawing tablet? Yes. Wacom, Huion, XP-Pen and others work with pressure in Krita, GIMP, MyPaint, Pencil2D and Blender.
Do my files survive a restart? In the live session: no. Installed: yes. See The live session.
How do I update Animux?
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade on an installed system. See Updates.
Can several computers render together? Yes, with Flamenco.
Does Animux run on a Mac? On Intel Macs in VirtualBox, VMware Fusion or Parallels, and from USB on many models. On Apple Silicon (M1–M4) only through very slow emulation.
Is Animux safe? Does it send my data anywhere? Animux has no tracking. Programs connect to the internet only for things you ask for (updates, web browsing, downloading Blender extensions). Upscayl's AI runs offline.
Where is OpenToonz / Natron / OBS Studio?
OpenToonz is on Animux from r16.3 (2D Animation → OpenToonz); on older releases get it from Flathub. Natron and OBS Studio are not on the ISO. OBS Studio: sudo apt install obs-studio. Natron: from Flathub, see Adding software.
What do the numbers in the ISO name mean?
animux-genesis64-deb_28.iso is build number 28 of Genesis64; it is release r16.3 (build 27 was r16.2, build 25 was r16.1, build 21 was r16).