How to work with pdf files with ARES CE,Bricscad,DraftSight and Librecad

Importing PDF files is a missing feature from all Linux CAD packages. However there are some very interesting and simple workarounds to bypass this problem.

QCAD 3 Beta is available for public download

A new beta version of QCAD 3 is available for public downloading and testing. Get this new version from here.
QCAD 3 has a new polished look, dwg support, a new properties editor, and various new tools and improvements.

Drawing settings dialog

The new splash screen

The new GUI

The tar.gz version is preferable for testing, unless you want to test the installer. It's also necessary to read the notes before start the downloading process.

Feel free to submit bugs and feature requests here.

A little workaround for compiling FreeCAD dev on Ubuntu 11.04

FreeCAD is an Open Source 3d Parametric Solid Modeler with major improvements during the last months. I had posted earlier this year a how-to guide for compiling the latest development version on Ubuntu.  But now this process needs a workaround to make the Part design module to work properly.

Two quick tips for the new DraftSight version

After installing the latest DraftSight I did some quick changes that might be helpful.

DraftSight and 64bit Linux

I have decided to write this little comment because of the great interest of people to run the current versions of DraftSight, which are 32bit only, in 64bit Linux installations. First if you want to run DraftSight in a Linux box 32bit OS is preferable for some reasons, but if you continue wanting  a 64bit OS you have to keep in mind some difficulties:

1. Do not use unsupported distros, different packaging may cause problems that are more difficult to solve
2. Linux has various package manages which may have different behavior. For example dpkg doesn't add automatically 32-bit dependencies but yast does
3. Ubuntu 11.04 has a bug that breaks the installation of 32bit packages in a 64bit system. There are various workarounds but I think that, update your dpkg package via apt-pinning, is the best.
4. A quick tip is to start DraftSight for first time via terminal, so you can see any error messages. You can start DraftSight with the command

/opt/dassault-systemes/draftsight/bin/DraftSight 

Little things that make linux powerful and effective

 Linux is famous about its fancy Window managers. Compiz, Kwin and e17 are some of them with different capabilities each one. But these fancy things are only for fun??