DraftSight 2015 is out with a 64bit only version for Linux.

DraftSight 2015 is out and Linux users can now install it without problems on a 64bit distro because this version is 64 bit only.

DraftSight Linux goes 64 bit

According to official sources, the next (V1R6) release of DraftSight for Linux will be 64bit instead of the 32bit  older releases. This will make many Linux users happy because a native 64bit DraftSight version was a very popular demand. Unfortunately for users with older machines the 32bit version will be dropped.

How to make DraftSight look native on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 64 bit

Here is a workaround to make DraftSight to use your desktop theme on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 64bit.

• Create a new file named .gtkrc-2.0 inside your home folder

• Add the following line and save it.

gtk-theme-name="Ambiance"

• Edit your .profile file. It is inside your home folder and it's hidden so you have to hit Ctrl+H in order to make it visible.

• Add the following line at the end of this file and save it.

export GTK2_RC_FILES="$HOME/.gtkrc-2.0"

• Install gtk2-engines-murrine:i386

• Logout and then Login back in order to apply the changes

Now DraftSight will use the default desktop theme on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 64 bit.

DraftSight and Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 64-bit

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS is the new LTS version of Ubuntu and it will be available on its final state later this month. 64-bit  LTS versions are ideal for someone who wants to built a modern CAD workstation but unfortunately DraftSight comes on a 32-bit version only. Ubuntu provides support for running 32-bit applications on a 64-bit OS but DraftSight's installer doesn't support this functionality which is known as multiarch support. However the installation of DraftSight on a 64-bit Ubuntu 14.04 LTS system is possible with a few tweaks.

BricsCAD V14 for Linux is out !!!

Today Bricsys announced the availability of BricsCAD V14 for Linux. This new release has a lot of new features and improvements.

DraftSight V1R5 is out with a lot of changes

DraftSight V1R5 has been released and its Linux version has some significant changes.
Most important of all is the change of the package name and the new locations of files and folders.

ARES CE gets a new major upgrade but...

Graebert released a new major upgrade for the ARES CE dwg-based CAD program. This new version comes with major changes and as the company claims it also has performance improvements. Unfortunately, the Linux version is garbage. It's impossible to run the software under Linux and in some cases even the installation isn't possible . I spent a lot of time trying different combinations of software and hardware. I tried Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64bit and 13.10 32bit with both AMD and NVIDIA GPUs, with or without proprietary drivers, without any success at all. I also tried various workarounds but probably this is a problematic Linux release of ARES CE. It seems that Linux users have to wait for a fixed version in order to run the new release and test its new features under their favorite OS.

RibbonSoft released QCAD 3.4

A new version of QCAD has been released a few days ago. This new version contains some new features, like a new view mode and support for custom properties. Any Linux users that are interested in trying this CAD application, can download QCAD here. QCAD 3.4 will work just fine in any modern Linux distro.

FreeCAD 0.13 is now stable

FreeCAD 0.13 is now the latest stable release of FreeCAD. This version has a lot of improvements and  a new Ubuntu PPA for stable releases.

• Release Notes
• Complete changelog
• Ubuntu Stable PPA

FreeCAD is an Open Source Parametric Solid Modeler. It has excellent community support, modular architecture and it's fully programmable via Python.

BricsCAD V13 for Linux is now available!

Bricsys has released today the new BricsCAD V13 for Linux.

How to fix BricsCAD's segfault on Ubuntu 12.10

BricsCAD V12 doesn't work correctly on the new Ubuntu 12.10.
The problem is that BricsCAD V12 doesn't operate well  with the version of libfreetype that is installed by default on Ubuntu 12.10. This problem can be fixed by copying a working version of this library into BricsCAD's LD_PRELOAD path.

How to install Bricscad V11 on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

Bricscad V11 has a syntax problem in the description field of the .deb file. This problem causes a failure during the upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04 but it also makes the installer unusable in clean installations of Ubuntu 12.04. The fix is quite simple and similar to the DraftSight on Ubuntu 12.04 64bit workaround.
You have to edit the control file inside the .deb installer. Here is the complete workaround:

New release for VariCAD

A new version of VariCAD has been released. According to the release announcement there are various new features and improvements:

This version contains new methods of profiles lofting and extrusions, more options for 2D drawing in 3D space, support of ISO228 pipe threads and improvements of 2D threads exported from 3D views. In 2D, the new version has rebuild layer management. There are further significant improvements in user interface. 

List of new features:

 - Multiple new possibilities of lofting of profiles 

- New options of profile extrusions, improvements in other methods of basic solid creation 

- New methods of 2D profile selection, including better diagnosis of problems 

- New possibilities of 2D drawing in 3D space 

- Support of ISO228 pipe threads 

- New methods of selections of 3D edges for blending 

- New 2D layer management 

- Additional options for data exports from BOM 

- Further improvements in user interface

The release announcement has also a more comprehensive description of the new features:

- Multiple new possibilities of lofting of profiles - allows you to loft one profile into another, without limitations given by type of profile segments 

- New options for profile extrusion, support of draft angle 

- Improved method of creation of helical surfaces and creation of rotation combined with lofting 

- New methods of 2D profile selection, including better diagnosis of problems. This allows you to easily detect forgotten overlaps, gaps, intersections etc. 

- New possibilities of 2D drawing in 3D space. You can comfortably draw a profile at a selected plane and then select method of solid creation, like profile extrusion, lofting, rotation etc. 

- Support of ISO228 pipe threads, and better option for thread selections. Threads exported from 3D into 2D are automatically detected during dimensioning. 

- New methods of selections of 3D edges for blending. You can select multiple edges, or optionally edges of entire outlines. Before blending, selected edges are sorted automatically. 

- New 2D layer management. This contains a possibility to modify automatic layer switching. 

- Improvements in user interface - new multiple options for dialog panel buttons, for solid translations or for 3D view rotations. Some panels are changed to be more legible. 

- Multiple new selection methods are available between commands. Press and hold Shift for edges selection or press and hold Ctrl + Shift for drawing plane selection. 

- New default settings for icons size. The icon size is now automatically determined according to screen resolution. There are new toolbar configurations, now different for small icon size and large icon size. 

- Additional options for data exports from BOM. You can optionally export headers, or to select text file formats and encoding.

VariCAD 2012-2.03 on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

VariCAD provides .deb and .rpm installers for both 32bit and 64bit. Free trial versions are available after registration at application's website.

 

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and .dwg-based CAD

After the installation of the new Ubuntu 12.04 LTS I tested the installation of all the available .dwg based CAD applications.

DraftSight and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64bit

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS will be released on April 26 with some important and useful features like multiarch-support. However some 32bit packages still have installation problems on 64bit systems because they don't follow the new specifications. One of the packages that need some tricks in order to install it on a 64 bit Ubuntu 12.04 system is the current V1R1.4 of DraftSight.

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64bit will make the life easier to Linux CAD users and vendors

As you probably already know all the .dwg-based Linux CAD are 32bit only and their installation on 64bit Ubuntu systems is currently painful. But this will  change soon...

The true multiarch support

Ubuntu 11.10 came with multiarch support, a feature that makes easier the installation of 32bit apps in a 64bit OS. However this feature isn't yet implemented correctly and the installation of 32bit apps in Ubuntu 11.10 64 bit is a nightmare.
Another distro with multiarch support is OpenSuse. OpenSuse provides excellent multiarch support. I have tested the installation of the first beta version of DraftSight on OpenSuse 11.4 64bit and it was installed without any issues.
However, after the release of OpenSuse 12.1 I was curious to test the current 3rd Beta of DraftSight with the new 64bit OpenSuse.
I installed OpenSuse 12.1 64bit GNOME version via VirtualBox. I downloaded DraftSight.rpm and tried to install it. With the first attempt I got an error. A dependency couldn't be found. That happened because DraftSight depends on a library that isn't included in the official OpenSuse repositories. However, the solution is extremely simple. You just have to enable the Packman repository. This repository ( it's similar to the Medibuntu repository) contains extra software that isn't included for licensing reasons. After that step DraftSight was installed automatically, without problems,  simply by double clicking on the DraftSight.rpm package from your file manager.

 The warning message for the unsatisfied dependency.

After enabling the Packman repository, everything is fine.

DraftSight and Ubuntu 11.10 64bit

Ubuntu 11.10 has multiarch support. This is a feature that makes the installation of 32bit applications on a 64bit OS easier. Well that doesn't work with DraftSight. The package failed to be installed correctly in every possible workaround I tried. DraftSight installed and worked after some tricks but it was marked as damaged so it had to be removed. (You are unable to update your system or install new programs if you have damaged packages).

So the only way to install and  run DS on a 64bit Ubuntu 11.10 is to completely ignore dpkg.
How to do that? Here are the necessary steps.

• Install the necessary dependencies of DraftSight: sudo apt-get install libdirectfb-extra sendmail
• Install this library from Natty.
• Extract the contents of DraftSight.deb. For your ease put Draftsight.deb file inside your home folder.Then right click on the DraftSight.deb and select "Extract here"
• Open nautilus as root ( Press Alt+F2, type gksu nautilus, press Enter, insert you password and press Enter again)
• Copy the contents of ~/DraftSight/var and ~/DraftSight/opt into you system's /var and /opt folders
• Open a terminal and type: cd ~/DraftSight/DEBIAN  then type sudo ./preinst and  sudo ./postinst

Now you are able to work with DraftSight on your 64bit Ubuntu without any dpkg problems.

 I don't like workarounds like this but unfortunately it is the only way to install DraftSight on a 64bit Ubuntu 11.10 system.

Important Update: This workaround is for DraftSight V1R1.3

The newer V1R1.4 version doesn't need any more the library from Natty and probably sendmail. Also the path to DraftSight's startup script has been changed to /opt/dassault-systemes/draftsight/bin/draftsight

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 

TeighaViewer for Debian/Ubuntu 64 bit workaround

TeighaViewer is a free CAD files viewer from ODA. It has a Linux version but it's only for 32 bit rpm based distros. Using alien you can easily install it on a 32 bit deb-based Linux system. However alien has a big disadvantage: cannot convert packages with different architecture than the system's one. So if you have a 64bit system with Debian/Ubuntu you cannot install TeighaViewer with alien. Is there any other way?? I found a quite simple workaround...