DraftSight V1R2 is out but it's broken

A new version of DraftSight has been released but it's completely unusable with the new Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. The application seems broken and I get a segmentation fault when I try to launch it. Sometimes the application opens but pull down menus and toolbars are missing. I'll try to investigate if there is any way to fix that but I don't expect any solution about this.
Ubuntu 12.04 users have to be careful with this. Don't upgrade if you don't have a copy of the previous DraftSight V1R1.4 installer.

DraftSight V1R2 on Ubuntu 12.04. Disaster!!!

Update: DraftSight V1R2 doesn't have any GUI problems with CentOS 6.2 32bit, OpenSUSE 12.1 64bit and Ubuntu 12.04 64bit ???!!!(All these are VirtualBox installations). On my Ubuntu 12.04 32bit installation I finally got back the toolbars but the pull-down menus are still missing.

Update 2: Finally I got a working DraftSight V1R2 on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 32bit. The problem is that DS tries to load missing or invalid CUI and Menu files when your system locale is not English.
To get a correct looking DraftSight you have to:
- type options on the command  line and navigate to File Locations--->Interface--->Customization File and then load the correct application.xml file. Save the changes

This will make the toolbars visible again.

After that:

-right click on a toolbar and select Customize Interface
Navigate to UI Profiles--->UI Profiles--->Menu Bar, then click to the button show menu explorer and then drag 'n' drop all the items into the Classic default entry. Save the changes again.

Finally DraftSight looks OK again

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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.

 

Customizing Ubuntu 12.04 LTS for CAD

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is probably the best solution for a Linux-based CAD workstation. Supported for 5 years and easy to use, allows you to create a zero-cost reliable CAD workstation powered by Linux. In this article I am going to show some tricks that will make your life easier with your new OS.

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.

QCAD 3 is near to the final release

QCAD 3 is very close to the final release. It will have a lot of improvements like dwg support, new library browser, new scripting engine, various UI improvements and more...
Also new versions for CAM Expert and QCAD Community Edition, based on QCAD 3 will be available.
All the beta/RC versions I had tested were working well on both 32 and 64 bit Linux and I expect the same for the final release.
You can read the full official announcement here. 

Important notice for Bricscad Linux users and testers

If you had installed Bricscad V10, V11 or V12 beta on Ubuntu and you want to upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS you will be affected by this bug that will cause a failure and your upgrade will not be successful. This bug causes a critical dpkg error during the upgrade process and your system will be damaged and unusable. It doesn't matter if you have already uninstalled Bricscad because the description of the package (this causes the error) remains on your system even if the package isn't any longer installed. 
In order to fix that you have to:
-Make a clean installation, not an upgrade. This is the easiest method to avoid this bug. If you have a separate /home partition it is very easy.
-Edit as super user the files /var/lib/dpkg/available and /var/lib/dpkg/status. You have to edit Bricscad's description and to put a full stop "." atevery empty line after the space that already exists. ( Each empty line has to be a space character followed by a full stop). Make sure that you keep the correct syntax of the file. Save the changes and test if your dpkg works correctly by installing any package from your package manager.
This bug will also affect Debian Wheezy when it will be released.

The error during the upgrade. The operation stops and exits.

Your system after the upgrade failure.

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.