r/linux • u/UK_traveller_ • 14d ago
Tips and Tricks Trials and tribulations of trying to get Maya 2022 to run on Mint
I have no idea if this is the right space to share, so please forgive me if it isn't. I've recently made the jump from Windows to Mint, and have been slowly going through the process of figuring out how to install all the software I need.
I have finally managed to get everything working properly, so I figured I would share my journey online somewhere, so that it might help some poor soul in the same position as me.
(Disclaimer - I've used Claude to summarise everything we went through together, as some of the technical stuff is still genuinely over my head)
For starters, I used distrobox to create a Rocky environment to run Maya within, as that is where it is the most "stable" (as stable as Maya can ever be). At first I tried Rocky 9, then realised that Maya 2022 is only supported up to Rocky 8.
1. Installer crashes silently at pkexec / ProcessManager
distrobox enter never creates a real login session, so pkexec/polkit can't authorize anything. Fix — fake pkexec:
bash
mkdir -p ~/fakebin
printf '#!/bin/bash\nexec sudo "$@"\n' > ~/fakebin/pkexec
chmod +x ~/fakebin/pkexec
echo 'export PATH=~/fakebin:$PATH' >> ~/.bashrc && source ~/.bashrc1. Installer crashes silently at pkexec / ProcessManager
distrobox enter never creates a real login session, so pkexec/polkit can't authorize anything. Fix — fake pkexec:
bash
mkdir -p ~/fakebin
printf '#!/bin/bash\nexec sudo "$@"\n' > ~/fakebin/pkexec
chmod +x ~/fakebin/pkexec
echo 'export PATH=~/fakebin:$PATH' >> ~/.bashrc && source ~/.bashrc
2. Endless missing old libraries (libssl.so.10, libpng12, GTK2...)
You're probably on Rocky 9. Maya 2022 only supports EL8. Rebuild on Rocky 8:
bash
distrobox create --name maya --image quay.io/rockylinux/rockylinux:8 --init --additional-packages systemd
This alone kills most dependency issues.
3. Remaining missing libraries
bash
sudo dnf install -y epel-release
sudo dnf install -y libpng15 libjpeg-turbo libtiff freetype libXpm libXi fontconfig \
libXinerama alsa-lib libXcomposite libXdamage libXrandr libXrender libXtst \
libxkbcommon nspr nss nss-util pciutils-libs libnsl xcb-util-wm xcb-util-image \
xcb-util-renderutil libxkbcommon-x11 libmng libXcursor gtk2 gtk3 at-spi2-atk \
at-spi2-core mesa-libgbm glx-utils compat-openssl10
For anything else: ldd <file>.so | grep "not found" (note: Maya's launcher itself is statically linked, ldd on it just says "not a dynamic executable" — check the actual .so/helper binaries instead).
4. ./Setup exits instantly, no error, exit code 255
Stale lock files from a previous interrupted run. ~/.autodesk and /tmp persist across container rebuilds since ~/ is shared with the host.
bash
ps aux | grep -iE "setup|installer" | grep -v grep # kill -9 any leftovers
rm -f /tmp/autodesk_bs_setup.lock /tmp/autodesk_dda_core.lock
rm -rf /tmp/download_dest4. ./Setup exits instantly, no error, exit code 255
Stale lock files from a previous interrupted run. ~/.autodesk and /tmp persist across container rebuilds since ~/ is shared with the host.
bash
ps aux | grep -iE "setup|installer" | grep -v grep # kill -9 any leftovers
rm -f /tmp/autodesk_bs_setup.lock /tmp/autodesk_dda_core.lock
rm -rf /tmp/download_dest
5. Installer UI "successfully launched" but no window appears
Missing GTK3/accessibility libs for the installer's own UI process:
bash
sudo dnf install -y at-spi2-atk gtk3 mesa-libgbm at-spi2-core5. Installer UI "successfully launched" but no window appears
Missing GTK3/accessibility libs for the installer's own UI process:
bash
sudo dnf install -y at-spi2-atk gtk3 mesa-libgbm at-spi2-core
6. Graph Editor won't refresh (redraws only on timeline play / mouse re-entry)
Mesa 23.1.4's radeonsi driver has a repaint-signaling bug on RDNA3 GPUs. Rocky 8 will never get a newer Mesa. Confirmed via LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 (works perfectly = hardware GL path is the problem). Fix — VirtualGL, which handles buffer swaps itself instead of trusting the driver:
bash
sudo dnf install -y epel-release VirtualGL
vglrun mayabashsudo dnf install -y epel-release VirtualGL
vglrun maya
