Firefox 3 is here!!

[glockmail]

My son's toying with a computer to run on Linux and entirely open source applications. It looks good for about 95% of the world, but I use AutoCad and literally dozens of small engineering specific applications that rely on Windoze. He hasn't figured out yet how to make those work- dependably- on Linux. There’s an application called Wine that supposedly claims that it can run this stuff but so far hasn’t proven to cut the mustard.

[diuretic]

My son's toying with a computer to run on Linux and entirely open source applications. It looks good for about 95% of the world, but I use AutoCad and literally dozens of small engineering specific applications that rely on Windoze. He hasn't figured out yet how to make those work- dependably- on Linux. There’s an application called Wine that supposedly claims that it can run this stuff but so far hasn’t proven to cut the mustard.

What's he using? I run Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (I had kernel problems with Hardy so I went back to the previous version). I'm using the Gnome version. In Ubuntu there's a handy little programme that tells you what software is available and it downloads and installs it automatically for you - the Add/Remove function in Ubuntu. I just checked. It has a couple of CAD programmes available at no cost.

QCaD
SagCAD
ElectricalCAD (for circuit design)

There is a function called Synaptic Package Manager which shows you more programmes

Qcad
Pythoncad
varkon

[glockmail]

What's he using? I run Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (I had kernel problems with Hardy so I went back to the previous version). I'm using the Gnome version. In Ubuntu there's a handy little programme that tells you what software is available and it downloads and installs it automatically for you - the Add/Remove function in Ubuntu. I just checked. It has a couple of CAD programmes available at no cost.

QCaD
SagCAD
ElectricalCAD (for circuit design)

There is a function called Synaptic Package Manager which shows you more programmes

Qcad
Pythoncad
varkon

I sent him a link to the Wired article to see what he says. I notice that it doesn't support games too well which is fairly critical for a 16 year old. I looked at the PythonCad thing a bit and it doesn't support dwg files. My industry is nearly 100% on DWG, which is why I moved to Windoze from Mac 8 years ago.

[diuretic]

I sent him a link to the Wired article to see what he says. I notice that it doesn't support games too well which is fairly critical for a 16 year old. I looked at the PythonCad thing a bit and it doesn't support dwg files. My industry is nearly 100% on DWG, which is why I moved to Windoze from Mac 8 years ago.

Yes games are in issue in Linux. There is a free programme called Wine which allows some games (not all, there's a list of known ones on their site) and a commercial programme called Cedega which is better than Wine but of course costs a few dollars. But apparently Cedega is pretty good. I only have FlightGear on my Linux computer and that runs pretty well and my Windows computer is too slow to run any decent modern games, I just use it for Office (OpenOffice is good on Linux but when compatabilty is important I use Office on Windows).

As for DWG - I'm going to admit utter ignorance but you're right Python Cad doesn't support it.

Oh well, in a later manifestation perhaps.