On Thursday 15 July 2004 09:52 am, Artur Sampaio wrote: > Hi folks. > Does anyone knows a *good* alternative to AutoCAD? Or if AutoCAD 2004 > runs under Linux? > > Thanks in advice. > > Artur Sampaio Artur: No, but all is not lost. When I first retired three years ago, I spent some time looking at the possibility of doing CAD under Linux. My search was restricted to doing 3D design of mechanical devices and parts, so what follows may not be useful if you are engaged in some other area of technology: 1. AutoCad got married to Windows some time in the mid 90's, abandoning it's ties to pure MS-DOS and Unix versions. Wine? No. AFAIK, no one successfully run AutoCad using Wine, although there have been reports of successes with AutoCad Lite. 2. If your requirements only require 2D drafting capability, QCad may be viable alternative based upon my own brief experience with it. However, if your users are long time AutoCad jockeys, expect strong resistance. 3. Varicad (http://www.varicad.com/index.phtml) strikes me as an excellent alternative for mechanical engineering development, design and drafting (my field). It isn't free ($300US? -- 30 day free trial), and it will take a while to learn, but my brief trial of it impressed me very much. I've also read that the developers are very responsive to user requests. However, it would not be useful in other disciplines. The AutoCad jockeys will not like it. 4. And now, some links (more available on request): http://pfrostie.freeservers.com/cad-tastrafy/ -- survey of various linux cad applications with links to the product's home page. Warning: Some of the information may be dated. http://www.freelists.org/webpage/cad-linux -- base page for mail list related to linux cad apps -- (run by same guy as above) -- about 0.0016 as much actiity as this list. Check the archives. http://www.eland.org.uk/pages/Misc/cadnotes.html -- interesting comments; worth a look. An especially hot site if you design bicyles. I don't. -- cmg
