[Coco] OT Linux question

[Andrew]

Louis,

There will always be "edge-cases" - I honestly don't know enough about 
the CAD world to offer a solution here; I found this:

http://linuxblog.darkduck.com/2012/10/best-free-linux-cad-software.html

FreeCAD actually looks pretting interesting...

On the solidworks website, there is mention of "Linux" being supported 
in the downloads area; what and how much this support "is" - I don't 
know; you need a login.

As far as PTC is concerned, they seem to only offer a viewer of some 
sort (Creo View ECAD) for RHEL5.

Probably none of these offer what you would need or want in CAD, but 
maybe in 5 or 10 years time, things will be different? It wasn't that 
long ago that you couldn't find any good CAD software for Linux, now you 
at least have some level of choice, even if it isn't at the same level 
as professional packages. Perhaps if FreeCAD or another CAD package 
shows they are serious, there will be industry backing or funding to 
allow them to take it to the next level?

Ultimately, that's what this all boils down to - users wanting the 
software, and programmers with the skills needed (and perhaps the same 
"wants") to develop it. The "itch to scratch". Perhaps if more people 
supported what already exists (both with words and donations), even if 
it wasn't "perfect" - it would push the developers and others to expand 
and make the products better over time.

One thing we are likely to see, as time goes on, is that these packages 
become more robust and incorporate features to help support the growing 
3D printer and other hobbyist CNC movement - due to the open-source 
nature of that area. You probably won't see the "big players" enter into 
it until much later in the game (though I am sure they already support 
to some extent existing "closed-source"/"proprietary" 3D printers and 
such in some manner). Then again, I might be talking out of my posterior 
here; once again, not my field of expertise...

:)

Andrew L. Ayers
Glendale, Arizona
http://www.phoenixgarage.org/

> Show me a Linux CAD package that can compete to PTCs, Solidworks, AutoDesk.
> Xilinx FPGA development (using Xilinx tools) is only "supported" on RHEL,
> same with Cadence OrCAD.  I have gotten the Xilinx stuff to "work" on CentOS