Supported CPU Architectures

Jacques
Jacques
edited March 2020 in Licensing and installation

Hi,

Does BricsCAD on Linux only run on x86_64 processors or can it be compiled to run on Raptor Computing systems POWER 9 based systems (ppc64 arch)? What about ARM based systems?

Comments

  • Escain
    Escain

    I am not part of the Bricsys team, but I am software engineer, so I can answer part of your question.

    If you open the "Custom" linux compressed file, it includes compiled libraries and binaries (.so and executables) between others. Those are compiled for x86-64 and will not work on ARM or IBM Power-9 processors.

    Bricsys could probably provide an installer for ARM or/and Power-9 architecture, but this requires to rework the code: Even if it is possible to develop a software fully cross-architecture compatible, this is never the case for complex software which have not been designed for this purpose from the beginning.

    As a summary: I am pretty sure BricSys does not provide non-x86-64 compiled version of their software, and also that they wont spend soon the money in doing it. It is already quite uncommon that they provide Linux support (only supported by a few CAD software like Siemens NX and some open-source)
    BTW: Thank you BricSys for supporting Linux natively.

  • Jacques
    Jacques

    Thank you for commenting, my thoughts are in the same direction.

    Given the rise of arm in the industry for mobile hardware I suspect many applications will need to be cross compiled in the near future. Apple Macs are due to shift to custom Apple arm based processors in 2021/2022 and even Microsoft have started moving some of the Surface books to arm. (Microsoft SQ1 CPU)

    It's indeed rare that you find good CAD/BIM apps on Linux, so agreed...Thank you for supporting Linux!