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Geronimo stilton · December 2009

Bricsys Merry Christmas and happy new year

Yaacov Lazar · December 2009

Merry Christmass and a happy New Year!

I've also been lurking this thread for a while, hoping.

We work with Autocad R14 on Windows XP (I know, go ahead and laugh!)

I'm seeing the first signs that we'll be eventually forced off XP to Windows 7, like what happened to us with Windows 98.

Difficulties with installing Windows XP on a new computer, incompatible hard disk setups, etc. ugh.

I have no idea if we'll be able to run Autocad R14 on Windows 7, it was nice that it could run on XP.

So I want to eventually move our architecture office to Bricscad on Ubuntu (or something)

with The Gimp, Openoffice.org and some good substitute for Total Commander and Viewcompanion.

Then I'll be happy.

Anybody have any advice on how to handle such a transition?

Migration tutorials, good software, how to help the users, how to convince the bosses, how to set up the network, backups, and stuff like that?

Especially what I should learn.

I and my boss would really like to put together a low cost software suite, including Bricscad, that we could reccomend to other offices in our area, too.

I really want to include Linux in this, I installed Ubuntu on a partition to dual boot in a computer at home, but I haven't really done much with it yet.

Nivande Machado · December 2009

No New Year's Day to celebrate
No chocolate covered candy hearts to give away
No first of spring
No song to sing

No giving thanks to all the Christmas joy you bring
But what it is, though old so new
In fact here's just another ordinary day ……..

Marcelo Dalle Ore Braga · December 2009

Yaacov,

I am too just waiting for Bricscad Linux to start to have some seats with Ubuntu instead of Windows. I've beend using Ubuntu at home for about 2 years,for everything but cad, and prefer it instead of windows. One good way to make the transition is to start using the windows versions of the open source programs, we already use only OpenOffice, Gimp, Firefox and Thunderbird for email, and we really don't miss the Microsoft and Adobe programs. So when Bricscad Linux arrives and we start using Ubuntu,most of the people will be using the same software that they already used before.

Massimo Del Fedele · December 2009

3 days to end of December, and still no Bricscad for linux.

Some news from staff would be appreciated.

Max

Daniel Dapena · December 2009

Yaacov,

We are migrating from WinXp to Ubuntu in our study, waiting for Briscad Linux, of course. I sincerely believe that it is easier than it looks. As Marcelo said, use programs that also run on Linux. It will be easier operating system change.

Special applications can't run on Linux, such as programs for structures calculation, can be virtualized. Don't worry.

Regards,

Daniel

Erik De Keyser · December 2009

Dear LINUX Enthusiasts,

End of the year, so we owe you some status update about the Bricscad Linux version.

For the last several months this project is our top priority. We had hoped and promised to have an Alpha/Beta version, well we think we are close to the Alpha, but yet missed it. The good news is that we can build now a first LINUX version since two weeks. As of today we will publish a zip file of the product AS IS and make it downloadable for you from a separate web page that will require registration. More technical details will follow today on this forum together with the url of the download page.

From now on we will publish (and communicate only on this forum) new versions for download - we think about a new download every week or every two weeks. As you will notice soon, probably it will move forward quite well from here. A ton of things still to do but there is a solid team working on it. The priority for this project stays till the release. We expect that by the end of January we probably can publish a test version with some basic functionality. We don't want to make further predictions as you will be able to follow the project by the week, and see for yourself how we progress. We will publish also reports about what is done.

Until the final Beta - we will not answer questions nor give support for the versions published. This is in the interest of you all as we want to use all our efforts to get this product stable and available ASAP. I hope you understand this and respect this.

We hoped to be a little bit further today. But we are optimistic about the progress we will make in the coming weeks. Anyway as from today this first step should make it clear that this is real. The Bricscad LINUX version is on its way.

We wish all of you a very Happy New Year, and want to thank you again for your patience so far. 2010 becomes a LINUX DWG year.

erik

Thomas LORRAIN · December 2009

Two words : AWE SOME!!!

Thanks to all the Brics team, and happy new year guys!!

Geronimo stilton · December 2009

Thanks Good Year

Cielito Lindo · December 2009

GREAT!! Happy New Linux Year!

Yaacov Lazar · January 2010

Thanks for the replies!

Firefox and Thunderbird have been standard on my user's workstations for the last two or three years, and most of them are comfortable with them.

I install The Gimp as much as I can, and I use it fairly often on my machine,

but those of my users who do graphics are used to Photoshop and dislike the Gimp.

(They work on a couple of dedicated workstations with Photoshop, Powerpoint and some other graphics stuff installed.)

I understand that there is a "skin" or menu system someplace that can be installed on top of the Gimp for users who are used to Photoshop.

I'm more worried about a substitue for Total Commander (which I found that there are people who run it on Wine, does it work okay?)

Can anybody recommend a good HPGL/2 viewer and converter like Viewcompanion?

(I can't recommend these two programs enough!)

Are there any resorces for somebody like me who wants to migrate a whole CAD office to linux?

Oh, and congratulations on the Alpha release!

Slow and steady wins the race! and a Happy New Year!

Thomas LORRAIN · January 2010

Dear Yaacov,

I think the main issue when you completly move to Linux is to re-learn what was obvious for you in Windows.

The HPGL/2 is not the best part in Linux, and, as far as I know, There is no HPGL/2 viewer that runs on Linux. I guess the HPGL/2 is treated by CUPS?

For Total Comander I think you should read some documentations about Rsync, you will probably find what you're looking for.

Mooving to linux is a good oportunity to rebuilt your network anyway!

Good luck!

Knut Hohenberg · January 2010

There is a mature hpgl/2 viewer for linux that few people seem to know about ( http://hpgs.berlios.de/ ). The reason for this is probably the lack of a GUI ( since it has been developed for an internet-portal, it is a command-line program). Integrating this as an additional backend into a pdf-viewer (or into jarnal/xournal, to get redlining capabilities) shouldn't be hard to do, but I know of no plans to do so (maybe we should collect for a bounty?).

The request for a Total Commander replacement surprises me a little - I didn't notice a shortage of two-pane file managers for linux... personally, I always fall back to mc, power without the fuss...

Yaacov Lazar · January 2010

Thanks!

hpgl/2 is important for us, because it's the format we must use to send plotfiles to printing shops.

I always send .plt files together with .dwg files to the engineers in our projecst in case they want to print out some of the sheets.

I insist that they send me .plt files too, because they are much easier to view and handle than hardcopy paper.

(I HATE paper, digging around not-really-up-to-date not-filed-in-order meters-long sheets

to find some plumbing detail that I could find in a moment on my hard disk is NOT fun)

VC also lets me make a PDF from one or more .plt files to send to clients.

A command line viewer is okay if I can run it from the toolbar in TC. I'll look into it.

(I see that Total Commander works well on Wine (platinum): http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=18801)

My problem is that I'm a total noob with regards to Linux, and I feel kinda lost, so your recommendations are important.

Can "mc" show other computers in a network?

Thomas LORRAIN · January 2010

Dear Yaacov,

If you're a noob in Linux, I'm afraid you will have really a hard time to migrate your entire computer park.

Let's face it, Linux is a wonderfull OS, but it is also time consuming, at least at the beginning.And it's madee by geeks, for (mostly) geeks.

For Total commander : what do you need exactly?

mc is great, but I guess you will have a Gnome or Kde environement, so mc is good for the comand line hardcore guys (no offence Knut, I use it too ).

You must try a linux distribution first. I recommand Ubuntu, which is quite simple. Try on a "test" workstation first.

Good luck!

Knut Hohenberg · January 2010

@Yaacov:

I have to subscribe to Thomas' comments - switching to linux without (at least) one experienced user in your team is risky, be prepared for some frustration.

I agree about the importance of hpgl/2 for the AEC-community, that's why I proposed to collect some money to give an incentive for the maintainers of file viewing apps to incorporate it - but maybe it would suffice to voice this need in the right place, I never tried.

In the longer run, it might however be wiser to base a workflow on pdf, but I know that printing studios don't love it.

mc is short for Midnight Commander - quite like Norton Commander, the ancestor of Total Commander and the like (look at Wikipedia for more info). It has built in ftp support, but (to my knowledge) no built-in smb-browsing capabilities. There is also a Total Commander clone in the making (http://doublecmd.sourceforge.net/), but you're probably better off sticking to the mainstream - which would mean using Konqueror's two pane mode (KDE). If KDE is your choice, Mandriva might be a good place to start, otherwise I would also recommend Ubuntu.

Greg Skelhorn · January 2010

I guess I will continue the meandering of this thread... :-)

I seem to recall mc had a vfs for smb but it has been a while (a search should reveal it if there is).

Hmmm... looking at that I think I better exand, I think there was support for Windows networking (SMB) in mc as a virtual file system.

Other options (and there is a long list) are Krusader or Dolphin if you are into KDE. I think they both support browsing SMB networks. As the others have said, there is a lot to absorb for people when you move them to Linux and many people will not like it if there are many bumps so it is best to be able to set things up and test them out according to the users work flow to see where a bump may need to be smoothed first... Migrating a work flow and changing hardware can require a lot of time to search what apps available, hardware supported and configurations possible.

Still, I much prefer Linux for most of my work flow but I for one cannot live without a shell or three open.

Yaacov Lazar · January 2010

Don't worry, I have no intention of jumping in at the deep end, I want to mess around at home for a year or so, first, at least.

SMB, that's it! I tried a sorta-like-TC thingy on Ubuntu a while ago, but couldn't get it to see network shares. It mentioned SMB.

(sorry, I'm posting this from work, and I forget what it was called)

I'll try out MC and Krusader, etc., thanks! Maybe I'll try to get VC to work with Wine, it can't be too hard ... can it?

At work, we bought and installed one copy of Bcad v10 on my workstation,

and I'll be working with it for several months (bugs, adapting lisps, etc.) before we roll it out to the rest of the office.

In stages.

We're very cautious.

Ubuntu will be a hard sell to my boss, so I want the whole setup working well before I spring it on him,

and I know that he wouldn't even consider it if it weren't for eventually being forced to Windows 7 from XP, which I'm beginning to see the first signs of.

(It's what happened to us with Windows 98, installation problems with new computers, hard disk incompatibilities, I'm sure you guys know how it works)

You mentioned something about a "shell". Does that mean you run Windows in some kind of a virtual whatsits?

After all, we have plenty enough Windows XP licenses, maybe that could be part of the answer?

Is it very complicated? Is there a lot of overhead? (though computers get more powerful every year, so that shouldn't be too much of an obstacle)

Thank you for your time, it's a great help. Is there any forum for Cad and Linux issues? Or office migration to linux?

I'll be stumbling around with this for some time, and I'm not sure if this is the proper place to waste people's time, it's not really on-topic, is it?

Thanks again.

Thomas LORRAIN · January 2010

Hi,

Nautilus is a good way to see smb network. It works on my home network, and it's quite efficient. So no need for using other stuff, a least for a "basic" use I guess.

Depends of what you really need in terms of network management.

As exemple if you need to have a file server (like a NAS) where you put all your work (which I don't recommand, for safety reason) you can easylly auto-mount the Network disk (/etc/fstab). I have done this on my network and I have my nfs share ready to use at the beginning of my session. You can also schedule backup events (using rsync, or other).You can do anything, but you need first to

Shell is Hell! That was my mantra when I first install a Redhat on my PC (9 years ago now). It's like, well, a DOS windows (I know it's not DOS...) that you open and it's usefull to perform command line instructions. I'm a classic enduser, so I don't use it very often, but I admit that's a very usefull way to manage your system when you know what to do. Beside, you can showoff when using a Macos X ).

Linux is a real bargain for automatisation task, and network management, but it needs time to get in.

Choosing Linux for a work flow is a good choice for many reasons (Network management, Opensource communitty, anti-microsoft trust, Unix based system, system stability... etc...). I choose to run on Linux because it's efficient, simple (well, at least logical), I also bellive that knowledge must be share, and I'm just beginning my own business. So 50% for technicals reasons 50% for political statement. If your boss is not in the same state of mind, well, you should try the "software for free" aspect, but I think it's a false problem.

For switching questions try :

https://help.ubuntu.com/9.10/switching/index.html

And for Design and linux issues :

http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?s=fbec66f7b583f53ab9a787346017f07c&f=16

Good luck

Massimo Del Fedele · January 2010

Staying offtopic ( :-) ) I'll share my Linux experience :

I tried about 5 times to switch from windows in the past, tired of virus/antivirus/antispam and full

OS reinstalls. 4 times without much success, once with Suse, once Mandrake, twice RH.

I'm not a novice nor and end-user-only, but limits were simply too big for me, in particular for

some apps I needed, like a CAD and some other engineering programs.

3 years ago I gave a try again, this time with Ubuntu, after last virus invasion in windows xp.

BTW, I had 2 antivirus and 1 anti-spam installed on XP, which was becoming slow like hell as usual.

Ubuntu gave me good feelings : fast install, no need to fiddle with config files manually, got all

peripherals working... perfect. The only missing stuffs were CAD and a calculation app.

So, I installed a virtual machine with XP, KEPT AWAY FROM INTERNET (the only way to stay virus-free

on windows is to unplug network cable....), and installed both apps on it. The nicest stuff was that

starting VM + applications was faster than starting XP on my old machine. Usage was also quite good,

so I started using it for my job too. After a couple of monthes I could use Linux better than XP, and I

made my co-workers to switch too. They were skeptical on start, now they're converting all their home pcs

to linux too (!!!). Wishing to remove the last limit (the VM + XP) I gave a try to wine, partecipated to its

development focusing to CAD usability and to run my other needed app.

Now I have a completely windows-free machine, I got to run almost 100% perfect my cad and calculation apps

on it, and I didn't have any crash, slowdown or virus since 3 years. Never had to reinstall anything, just regular

and version upgrades.

Now.... waiting for Bricsys to publish their native CAD !

Ciao

Max

Yaacov Lazar · January 2010

Awesome! Great to hear all this!

(Heh, now that this thread has been superseded by the Alpha thread, we can declare that this is now "the topic" of this thread

What virtual machine program did you use, or does Ubuntu come with this capability built-in?

Or heck, I could go straight to Wine.

Thanks for the forums, they look useful. I'll try Nautilus, so now I have a nice list of file managers to try.

(I started out on Norton Commander on DOS and loved it, so Total (formerly Windows) Commander was essential for the move to W95, and I'm still happily addicted to TC.

Heck, my boss was surprised to learn that that TC wasn't just how Windows looked, even though he paid for it!)

My boss is generally favorable to anything that "sticks it to the Man" aka Microsoft, Autodesk, et al, that's why we're working on Bcad.

He's just justifiably cautious.

Massimo Del Fedele · January 2010

Hi Yaacov,

about virtual machines, the best (by now) is VmWare. Not free, indeed. I tried also VirtualBox, not bad, it comes with both a proprietary an an open source versions.

Wine should be of course the best, as it doesn't emulate anything, just forwards WIN system calls to Linux ones.

I say "should" because, even if it made enormous progresses in latest times, it's still far to be 100% compatible to windows.

I use it currently, but it needed a lot of work and some patches to wine code itself, some of which were accepted in, one (the most important for cad) not.

So, if you want to "jump into wine" ( :-) ) be prepared to read a lot of forums there, patch and recompile the source code, etc. Nothing too difficult, most work is

done and well explained (see their application database for autocad, for example, it has howtos and more).

The biggest difficulty is the need to patch wine with my proposed (and never accepted) DIB engine, without which Autocad is completely unusable in serious drawings.

Ah, last but not least, still no DOTNET3.xx apps, so no autocad 2009 nor 2010, you must stay with 2008 at most.

But, but.... why care ? Just wait to native BricsCad, I'm putting many hopes on it ! It'll be without doubts better then acad on wine, and of course cheaper.

Ah, BricsCad for windows is almost useless on wine, too slow... even with the patches.

That said, you should try it.... it allows you to run almost all windows apps, some good, some not so good, but it's worth the try.

Ciao

Max

Daniel Dapena · January 2010

Hi,

excuse me for interfering in this interesting off topic but, When will publish the first alpha version? Any news?

Regards.

Marcin Malinowski · January 2010

I'm enthusiastic about Bricsys, but I've got a really strange reply from Polish Bricsys office to the enquiry "why Bricsys sotware prices differ up to 30% depending on country they are offered?"
Briscad in Poland is 30% more expensive than the one obtained from international site.

Here the original reply:

"Witam,
jeżeli zauważył Pan różnicę cenową na stronie polskiej i międzynarodowej to zakładam że widział Pan również ceny w innych krajach i w każdym są inne. Każdy kraj posiada inna cenę oprogramowania spowodowane jest to kilkoma warunkami których nie mogę przedstawić."

Which is literally:

"Wellcome,
if you had spotted price difference between national and international webpage, I assume you had spotted differences in price which are different on another national webpages as well. Every country has different software prices which are due to reasons I cannot reveal."

I doubt therfore the willingness of Bricsys management to support Linux native version. Neverthless I belive Bricsys team to be devoted to the task. Therefore I belive that only market pressure may do.

Erik De Keyser · January 2010

Hi Marcin,

The reason why international pricing is different per country is very simpe: the cost of translations, taxes, support and distribution per country is different for Bricsys. Consequently it influences the end-user pricing.

Assuming that the Bricsys management is not willing to support the native LINUX verison of Bricscad couldn't be further away from the truth. Bricsys management and developers are all on the same page in this matter and in anything we do. This means that the whole team, myself included, gives priority to the Bricscad LINUX project until it is commercially released.

Best regards

erik

Alexey Kozlov · January 2010

Ya-a!

That's a great gift for our holiday!

Happy New Year to all! ))

David Gross · February 2010

Do you have a Beta version? or a Alpha?

How far are you from getting it working?

Thanks

Normand Chamberland · February 2010

David,

Have you not noticed the current top threads on this forum? For the past two months and a half actually?

david syes · March 2010

ARES® for Macintosh OS X and several common Linux-Distributions will be available in the second quarter 2010.

http://www.graebert.com/index.php?option=com_cad&Itemid=52&lang=en#36

Bricsys, you might be facing a competitor... WHEN will be following Bricsys get something to put our hands on? Even in the mainstream Linux/Open Source community and Closed Source communities, prospective users get some early beta or pre-beta or even just raggedy code to help keep the purveyor from going off the rails with a vision that is not matched to the user base. I don't mean to sound curt or crass or condescending, but when love relationships or infatuations of the flesh drag on and on, people just move on when something hotter and more flexible comes along...

Normand Chamberland · March 2010

David,

I'm sorry but your post reads as if you haven't taken a look at my post just over yours, or neither looked at the threads in this Bricscad for Linux forum that have been multiplying since Dec. 31st, 2010.

You ask in your message, "WHEN will be following Bricsys get something to put our hands on"

Dude! Have you looked at the other threads? Have you OPENED and READ them? You know, all those titles that read "Bricscad for Linux alpha 10.3.x" ?

How haven't you realized that Bricsys has been PROVIDING Alpha releases already of Bricscad for Linux for 3 MONTHS NOW?

Are you for real? Or are you some new kind of sophisticated spambot, and this post was a collection of random words that I just wasted 5 minutes of my life answering to?

I'm sorry for sounding curt or crass or condescending, to use your words, but sir, you deserved it.

@ Moderators: sorry if my answer was rude, please feel free to delete it.

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