On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 4:02 AM, ipse lute <wineforum-user@xxxxxxxxxx>wrote: > Does anyone know what hardware requirements are necessary for running > CAD/BIM software under Wine? Anyone tried running Autocad-like or > architectural software under wine, and to what avail? Any particular > examples will be much apreciated. I would like to run BIM software under > Wine within a popular linux distro like Mandriva or Debian-based, but i'm > afraid it will run too slow. Running such software under linux will save me > some RAM? Will i gain some CPU speed? > Have you looked at native Linux CAD systems? If you want something that is very AutoCAD-like, try LinuxCAD which claims to be very similar to use. Its not free ($99 a copy) but does have trial downloads though I couldn't find the Linux one. The site is here: http://www.linuxcad.com/ There's also QCAD, http://www.qcad.org/ which is open source released under the GPL. Its part of the Fedora distro, so may be part of others as well. In the past I've used several CAD DOS and Windows programs, such as the original TurboCAD, AutoSketch, and TrueCAD. I don't think it matters much which you use to learn about CAD - all CAD programs provide much the same drawing capabilities, so rather than learning a particular program its more useful to understand how they work. By this I mean drawing layers, point placement, object manipulation and replication, etc. because knowing this will let you quickly get to grips with any CAD system. Where CAD systems mostly differ is the user interface and file import/export abilities. Unless you're making very complex drawings (or making extensive use of hatching) neither computer or graphics card power should be an issue because CAD drawing programs, which use vector graphics and largely create line drawings, don't need huge amounts of CPU power and require much less graphics performance than gaming. After you've used one or two CAD programs you'll find that the main irritations are a user interface you can't get on with, a too limited range of saying 'here' on a drawing or lack of support for common file formats: any package should support DXF and HPGL output and having DWG as well is a nice touch. A good program will provide symbol libraries and let you create your own. It should also let you extend the program by writing macros, though these are not usually portable between different programs. Martin
