Download DraftSight - Free AutoCAD-Compatible 2D CAD Software For Linux

The first DraftSight - an AutoCAD compatible CAD software - public beta for Linux was released today.

DraftSight is a free 2D CAD application that lets you create, edit and view your DWG / DXF files. Even though it's free to use, the download page suggests that if you work for an organization that needs five or more DraftSight licenses, you should consider purchasing a Premium Pack.

I've only used DraftSight for a couple of minutes but I have to say that so far I'm impressed. And just like advertised, it was able to successfully open all of my old AutoCAD files.

DraftSight is currently available for Ubuntu (.deb), Fedora, Suse or Mandriva (.rpm) as well as Windows and Mac OSX.

Download DraftSight


Also see:

• Bricscad: .dwg Based CAD Software Available For Linux
• CADuntu (2D CAD Drawing Tool) Becomes LibreCAD, Gets Ubuntu PPA

[via OpenNet]

CADuntu (2D CAD Drawing Tool) Becomes LibreCAD, Gets Ubuntu PPA

CADuntu is a 2D CAD drawing tool based on the community edition of QCad ported to Qt4 and works natively on OSX, Windows and Linux.

Starting today, CADuntu has a new name: LibreCAD and it can easily be installed in Ubuntu, getting a PPA for Lucid, Maverick and Natty. Even though LibreCAD is quite new (and still in beta), it is already available in several languages and gives a real GPL solution to read/modify/create CAD files.

Install LibreCAD in Ubuntu:

For Ubuntu 10.04:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:showard314/librecad
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install librecad

For Ubuntu 10.10 and 11.04:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:showard314/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install librecad

The application will show up as "CADuntu" in the menu but that should change soon.


Download LibreCAD for Mac OSX and Windows.


See also: Bricscad: .dwg Based CAD Software Is Now Available For Linux

Bricscad: .dwg Based CAD Software Available For Linux

Bricscad V10 stable for Linux was released some 2 weeks ago but we somehow missed the news. Well, better late then never... (thanks to Reddit).

Bricscad V10 for Linux was released earlier this month (the stable version) and is the first .dwg based CAD software available for Linux - according to its website, although VariCAD also has .dwg support (I'm not sure about the difference between "support" and "based" in this case though). Though Bricscad is not free (and closed source), this is still great news for all those who previously needed to use Windows just because they've needed an .dwg based CAD application.

Existing applications and customizations written for Windows-based Bricscad and/or AutoCAD using LISP, DCL and Diesel APIs can run on Bricscad V10 for Linux without modification.

Bricscad V10 for Linux currently supports Ubuntu 9.10+, Fedora 12+ and OpenSuse 11.1+. I've tested Bricscad on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx 32bit and it worked flawlessly: a (trial) Ubuntu .deb was provided (60mb) and after installing it, I was able to open the 2 CAD .dwg files I had on my computer. However, I didn't try to actually use it but I may give it a try later on. I'm not sure how AutoCAD looks nowadays, but Bricscad reminds me of the AutoCAD 2001 or 2002 I was using back in college.

For now, Bricscad is only available in English but support for other 15 languages is expected in the next few days.

The price ranges from 510,00 EUR and 360,00 EUR (these are the prices for my country - it may be different in yours), however there is a promo ongoing so you can get a discount for the Linux version if you get it now. The pricing is ridiculously low compared to Autocad (which costs $US4000).

You can try out Bricscad for free (30 days): Download Bricscard for Linux (includes .deb, .rpm and tar.gz files).

More Free CAD / CAE Software

We recently posted about a free AutoCAD alternative called BRL-CAD, which is very advanced and build by the US military in collaboration with NASA. But the application is not that easy to use by normal people, not very much into CAD applications (or the army :-) ). So for something easier to use, I suggest the following two applications:

1. FreeCAD, a free general all-purpose 3D modeling application, focused on mechanical engineering and related areas, such as other engineering specialties or architecture. FreeCAD features tools similar to Catia, SolidWorks or Solid Edge, and therefore also falls into the category of MCAD, PLM, CAx and CAE. FreeCAD works on Windows, Linux and Mac OSX.

FreeCAD is still in early stage of development, but most of the functionality is already present. Still, you need to know a bit Python to fully use it. But it's definitely easier to use than BRL-CAD.

Download FreeCAD (official packages available for Windows and Linux (.deb files for Ubuntu and Debian) but also unofficial .rpm files). MacOSX: You'll have to compile it.)

Note: for Ubuntu Karmic Koala there are no packages available yet, but you can install freecad_0.8.2237-1testing1_i386.deb (which is for Debian) and python-pivy_0.3.0-1jaunty1_i386.deb (which is for Jaunty). You can get these packages from HERE.



2. QCAD. When I wrote about BRL-CAD I mentioned QCAD. Well, QCAD is actually enough for a basic CAD user, the only problem for some being that it's not free. There is however a community version of QCAD which is free and open-source:

The community edition contains the source code of QCAD, released under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). This package contains dxflib, fparser, qcadlib, qcadcmd, qcadactions, qcadguiqt and QCAD, all in one tar ball. A script to build everything from scratch on any Linux / Unix system is also included. Note that the community edition does not contain the scripting module or polyline support. Sources are usually released some time after the professional editions.

More info: QCAD website.

I find QCAD to be the most easy to use from the 3 CAD applications I mentioned (BRL-CAD from the other Web Upd8 post included) and if you're just getting started with CAD, or you don't have to create anything highly advanced, I strongly suggest QCAD.

Downloading / Installing QCAD:

In Ubuntu Linux, simply run the following command in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install qcad

For other Linux distributions: search for QCAD in your distribution repositories. If you can't find QCAD, you can download the source packages (look for QCAD Community Edition).

Windows users: download QCAD binaries (qcadbin-win-2.0.5.0-1_rel-0.2 > Binary with fonts).

Free AutoCAD Alternative: BRL-CAD

AutoCAD is one of the most expensive applications, but also indispensable for many types of jobs. Being so expensive, it's a good reason to look for free alternatives. QCad is one of the alternatives but sometimes it's just not enough.

BRL-CAD is a free, open-source alternative to AutoCAD, developed by the U.S. military in collaboration with NASA. It offers more than 400 tools, utilities, and applications comprising more than a million lines of source code. The package is intentionally designed to be extensively cross-platform and is actively developed on and maintained for many common operating system environments including for BSD, Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, and Windows among others.

Download BRL-CAD | Ubuntu .deb download

[via ubuntronics]