Gretings,

I have some beginner questions about Renderfarms ...

1.  Does the render software need a 'fancey' video card? 

IOW, does the rendering software use the graphics computing capabilities
of the video card or does the software operate from the CPU alone -- that
is to say, is the rendering performed independent of the video card? 

My apologies for asking such a basic question, but when I contact the
software companies (Bryce, etc.), I get answers saying that the render
software does use the video card, and also other answers that it does
not use the video card. 

2. If I undertake building a render farm, I would like to use Linux as the
   operating system on the nodes instead of Windoze -- which rendering
   software will run on Linux? 

Thanks in advance for any help. 

--
Martin