is there autocad for linux/ubutnu ???

[MaximB]

You might find this article interesting :

http://www.junauza.com/2009/12/free-...tware-for.html

[Gemnoc]

Hello guys,

I'm late to the party!

qcad is a good basic 2d program.

Graphiteone is a much more powerful 2/3d package. Similar to Pro Engineer. Native Linux, the site has .debs you can install. The basic 3d version is free for personal use.

Cad is the last frontier for me as far as being 100% out of windows. And graphite looks very good.. I still have to get it running at school (I teach) and try it out with kids.

The 3D basic version has heavy limitations: you work on a single part only (no assembly), and without a licence, you're limited to 20 features. That happens fast.

One gripe I have about GraphiteOne is that its "new" UI is a complete rip-off of SolidWorks', down to its icons (but without its ease of use). It is so lazy and stupid of the developer, I'm sure it's an intellectual property lawsuit waiting to happen if DS Solidworks ever hear of him. No wonder there are no complete screenshot of the software anywhere on the site!

For basic 2D drafting, I find QCad v2.0.5 Community Edition's quirky interface to be barely tolerable (read PITA). If you're stuck using that frequently, do yourself a favor and purchase the latest v2.2.2 from RibbonSoft. It's only 24€ and has a few UI improvements, for example AutoSnap which is IMHO worth the price in itself. BTW the demo terminates after 10 minutes of use, but you can restart it and it is good for 100 hours of total use. That might be enough if you use QCad lightly, and do a clean Ubuntu install each 6 months.

Now for those who've been praying for a real Autocad alternative on Linux, you might keep an eye on Bricscad from Bricsys. Bricscad is a pretty good Autocad clone, the Pro version supports ACIS (3D solids) modeling and a Pro licence is less than 15% the price of an Autocad one. About all Autocad command lines work! Their last Linux version was V6 dating years ago, and actually needed wine to run. But they started working on cleaning up their code on V8 for Windows with the intention (among others) to port their software to other platforms (Linux, OS X). After V10 release last October, they started work on the Linux-port. They've been releasing alphas since just before New Year to show their commitment to it. The 4th alpha came out this week, and although it is evidently very preliminary, it is very encouraging. You can already open and save dwgs.

Here's a link to Bricsys support forum where you'll find a link to download the Alpha (some personal info and email address required).

As a few people have already said, I doubt that for serious CAD work, any open source program will ever be up to the task. It is just too much effort. Commercial CAD companies have armies of paid developers. FreeCAD is promising and aims to be a feature-based parametric modeler similar to Catia, Pro|E, Solidworks & al. It is built upon the OpenCASCADE libraries for its modeling kernel, but there is still tremendous work to get there. Many such ambitious open-source projects have been abandoned over the years...

[bricsys]

Hi,

Bricsys announced the beta version of Bricscad V10 for Linux. Bricscad is recognized as the number one alternative CAD platform for the DWG file format. Now it finally becomes available as a native Linux version. Initially, Bricscad will support two Linux flavors, Red Hat and Ubuntu. The first commercial version will be released at the end of June, 2010.

You can download the beta version at www.bricsys.com

[mjharold]

Bricscad 10 is out! Linux native, Ubuntu version. I am on 10.04, I downloaded trial and it Rocks! I prefer Turbocad over Acad or clones but I will give up Turbocad for this Linux version!! Finally, maybe the floodgates have opened.

[BK Baal]

There's Librecad too.
http://www.librecad.org/

[Gemnoc]

DraftSight is an interesting AutoCAD replacement, provided you work only in 2D. What's more it is free, but you need to register inside 30 days or it will stop working.

One frustrating thing is there is only a 32-Bit package, and Dassault won't commit itself to a release date for a 64-Bit package. It may take years before it happens, and meanwhile, installing it on 64-Bit Ubuntu can be a pain in the neck. There are a couple forum topics about this.

LibreCAD is actually a fork of QCad Community Edition (which development has stopped for more than 6 years). It's being ported to the Qt4 libraries, I believe for now it uses the Qt3 to Qt4 transitional libraries. It integrates a lot better visually in the latest versions of Ubuntu than QCad. And it has one tool that QCad doesn't have, the polyline tool.

It may be good enough for people who want only FOSS on their systems, but to be fair it cannot be compared to DraftSight.