You have to stick to the versions listed. I've never setup a linux box or installed Softimage for linux ever, however I've used CentOS at a few places and it's a nice OS. I've also heard that Mint is a good choice too but you probably will have to figure things out on your own for that one.
That's crazy,
You better have to try out a latest fedora, I think on my last try i was running Softimage on fedora 18 with no prob.
Usually installing a linux distro takes 15-20 min maximum, as it's free you better have to try on the latest fedora ou centos 7.