...But it's still not autocad or microstation...
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| nicsmr Jun 07, 2009 11:09 PM EDT |
I hate to rain on anyone's parade Autocad and Microstation ARE the inndustry standard and none of these even come close autocad or microstation maybe in a few years but still too late.. |
| hkwint Jun 07, 2009 11:37 PM EDT |
There's Pro/Engineer and CATIA for them. BTW: Pro/E on Windows is LAME; crashes several times a day or sometimes several times per minute without apparent reason. One version of AD Inventor ran within Wine. Haven't tested Inventor 2009 yet; on my TODO-list. I never heard about - or saw job vacancies - for MicroStation BTW, it's all Inventor and SolidWorks nowadays (agree: Both don't run on Linux). Sometimes Solid Edge is asked for. As I said earlier in another thread, AutoCAD isn't used much anymore, it's being phased out by AutoDesk. So that's another app one won't miss when working with Linux. QCad isn't bad either. The problem is the closed .dwg format and the trademarks and stuff, and the settlements before the judge decided. However, when doing accounting, that should be added to the exit-costs of AutoDesk; not to the 'migration costs' to another platform. BRL CAD btw. isn't suited for mechanical drawing; it's for army tanks. OpenCascade is a kind of librabry - the one on which FreeCad is based, but it's not used within the Free Software community because of license issues. The other two I don't know about. So I'd say Pro/Engineer, CATIA (if you've got the money; because they make Adobe look cheap), QCad or try Wine. |
| jhansonxi Jun 08, 2009 12:19 AM EDT |
QCaD's native format is dxf, not dwg. This reduces the file format problem a bit but dxf is not a well-defined standard and different Autodesk products (and different versions of the same products) have trouble with it. I used the 2.0.5.0 community edition to plan out a basement remodeling. It's interface is a little weird, especially the side toolbar which acts a bit like a wizard. When editing, if you select an object and then a command it still prompts with the second selection step. You have to click the right-arrow button to continue. It's not always intuitive. Overall I found its features to be somewhere between AutoSketch and AutoCAD LT. |
| chalbersma Jun 08, 2009 12:23 AM EDT |
True AutoCAD is the standard. But with a bit of focus I'm sure OpenSource could come up with something comparable. Not unlike the Gimp -> photoshop comparison. Until then there is Qcad which isn't too far behind AutoCAD. Think of it like AutoCAD 2000 instead of 2009 |
| nicsmr Jun 08, 2009 12:47 AM EDT |
@ Chalbersma...I've know about 2 dozen photojournalists that use linux dual booted with XP Pro why? because GIMP is Gimped...A toy. nice to play with but not for serious work. Some in fact have got Photoshop to run using wine on LINUX but they remove gimp. @ hkwint...Microstation was the first to integrade database and cad to make up GBI systems. Used intensively in gis systems. As for autocad being phased out? when.? because over here it's still going strong. Also a production dafting shop doesn not use software rated as NOT BAD. It uses software that is INDUSTRY STANDARD that EVERYONE uses. We here, as a civic government IT shop, are slowly moving to open source software. But very likely not linux because of this lack of software. Believe me I'd love to go to LINUX, it what I use exclusively at home. |
| chalbersma Jun 08, 2009 2:48 AM EDT |
nic I know people who use Gimp for their small buisness and other who use it as a Photoshop viewer. It's not all there but it is pretty damn close. And with a little training it can be all the way there. I guess I'm just defending Gimp but It's got a safe little place on my harddisk. Your right about Cad systems not being up to snuff and some things need some more quality. But I think that Linux can be made to work with any neccessity and generally do so better than the competition. But that's why they call me a fanboi. |
| tracyanne Jun 08, 2009 4:03 AM EDT |
@nicsmr Obviously you have not been paying attention. I've already debunked that furfie in other threads. I work for a Windows shop developing Web applications for among others, the largest Fitness education companies in the world (read Multi Million Dollar Companies) We use the GIMP on Windows for all our Image editing needs, we have no need of PhotoShop. |
| nikkels Jun 08, 2009 7:17 AM EDT |
tracyanne Can you please post a few links of those company//websites. Reason for asking is that I come across this gimp/photoshop thingie all the time. Although I have an answer, I never have a link to back me up Thanks Nikkels |
| tracyanne Jun 08, 2009 8:56 AM EDT |
@nikkels http://www.ptonthenet.com http://www.fitpro.com http://www.ptacademy.com.au http://www.healthypeople.com.au http://www.group314.com.au/ http://www.humanperformance.com.au http://www.cedarleaf.com.au Some images are processed in Photoshop (supplied to us from an external designer), others are done in house using the GIMP. If you know which ones please tell me, because I'm not sure which ones are which. In some cases the externally supplied images may also be processed in the GIMP to resize or crop them, or to add transparency. |
| hkwint Jun 08, 2009 9:25 AM EDT |
@nicsmr: GIS and engineering are two different things I guess. I'm not familiar with the first.Quoting:As for autocad being phased out? when.? Intel wants to phase out Atom. Microsoft phases out XP. Why? because those are low-margin products. Same for AutoCAD. But they can't phase those products out because there's popular demand. Intel never wanted to make the Atom in first place. When I went to the AD website with my student-license (the one you can use as a gratis license for whatever AD product for 1,5 year) I couldn't find AutoCAD. It just was _NOT_ in the list between Inventor, Maya and all the other stuff. You know where it was? Installed as AutoCAD mechanical; an 'addon' when you install Inventor. Not a separate product! Quoting:Also a production dafting shop doesn not use software rated as NOT BAD. Believe me, they do; because that's just what Pro/E is. Even Microsoft is faster at improving products and squashing bugs than PTC. I heard stories about SolidWorks crashing about 15 times a day. I'm not sure if such a product even deserves the label "Not bad". But I understand your point nonetheless and I agree. As jhansonxi pointed out, much of the problem has to do with a lack of good standards. Even when working with IGES (and sometimes STEP); all those formats are a nightmare. The only thing one can say about IGES / STEP is that they are both 'industry standard' and 'not bad'. Because one time I received some IGES files; the planes contained holes where they joined, Pro/E couldn't fill the space between the planes meaning it couldn't interpret the solids, and I had to start drawing all over again. I could only use those IGES files to measure the parts and redraw them - from scratch. Now, if I had an ODF which I made in OOo and opened in KOffice, but I could only look at it to retype it in KOffice, is there another label for such a thing as 'not bad'? Probably; you would consider that 'bad'. My conclusion is, much of the industry standards are 'not bad' or even worse. So apart from everyone working with it there's no good reason why it should be an industry standard. Yes, there is: the lack of a better alternative. That's why people still use software like SolidWorks and Pro/E; even if it crashes a lot and the GUI is really annoying and makes you unproductive, like with Pro/E. |
| nikkels Jun 08, 2009 10:24 AM EDT |
Traceyanne Thanks for the links |
| nicsmr Jun 08, 2009 10:57 AM EDT |
@hkwint's GIS and GBIS ... Geographic Information Systems and Geographic Based Information Systems. We were leaders in developping such systems. Integrates Microstation (some may know it as InterGraph but now Bentley puts it out).and in our case Oracle. Maps out all the Citie's assets and places them in layers on a map and or an arrial photo graph. Assets are everything from sewer,gas,electrical lines, telephone poles and wires to roads, trees,manhole covers. right down to each section of sewer pipe along with depth, flow etc...Get the Idea? All these layers have been agreed upon at the provincial gov level as to what gets placed on what level. It may have been ratified country wide too but I'm not sure of that. So changing over to something that almost work like, or is pretty good will not cut it. And the good thing was that most of this was available to the general public until the 911 catastrophy. Tha't about it just. I did not mean to insult or upset anyone. Just expressing the reality in the great white north. Cheers |
| tuxchick Jun 08, 2009 11:09 AM EDT |
It seems that the next Linux frontier is high-end speciality industrial applications. Unix used to own this market, what the heck happened? In the real world is Unix cross-platform-ability practical, so that one app can easily be ported to the free BSDs, OpenSolaris, AIX, HP-UX? |
| jdixon Jun 08, 2009 11:21 AM EDT |
> Unix used to own this market, what the heck happened? Windows NT undercut the cost of said Unix systems by a substantial amount. :( |
| nicsmr Jun 08, 2009 12:02 PM EDT |
@ tuxchick... There is really only ONE windows at a time WITH a transition period in between (win 95/98/SE.....to..... XP-XP Pro-XP MEdia Centre .....to .....VISTA (screech to a halt, back up)). How many Unices existed at it peak, 5...6? More? I can name several SUN, IBM,SCO, SGI, Interactive, HP-UX, Even Intergraph had it own called CLIX... Basically the same but probably with some file system differences, some different software levels that made any product that worked on one, not work on another. Then there was licensing...could use it on this Unix but not on that one and vice versa. That, in part, was what killed UNIX. The price was another reason. I see the same thing happening with Linux. One just has to go to Distrowatch and there you have it. How many distros? upwards of 300. Each a little different each thinking it's the cat's meow. Unless 'we' settle down to 3 maybe 4 main "enterprise ready" distros, I can't envision linux making it. It may make it in the niche/small business sector but those still have to communicate and work with the big business desktop users, and I mean upwards of 4000 desktop/laptop businesses. SUSE is making great efforts to do that so is (K,X)Ubuntu. some of the top 15 might also be close. Red Hat has expressed it opinion on the matter. That's my view, others may and are allowed to differ... |
| jdixon Jun 08, 2009 12:16 PM EDT |
> Unless 'we' settle down to 3 maybe 4 main "enterprise ready" distros,... We have. The two "enterprise ready" distros are RHEL and SLES. If you don't want to pay for them you run CentOS and OpenSuSE. |
| caitlyn Jun 08, 2009 12:19 PM EDT |
I agree with jdixon. Ubuntu LTS is trying to enter that space as well. You can also add TurboLinux to the list since they are the most popular in most of Asia (especially Japan) and Red Flag which rules the roost in mainland China. That's a grand total of five enterprise level distros. We can live with five. |
| tuxchick Jun 08, 2009 12:34 PM EDT |
nicsmr, aren't SUSE and Red Hat Enterprise Linux enterprise-y enough for you? That's only two, and they have full grown-up engineering, support, and marketing teams behind them. Ubuntu is up-and-coming. So where's the problem? That old "too many distros" has been debunked at least a beelyun times. A vendor of an expensive specialty proprietary high-end app isn't going to be interested in a zillion marginal distros, especially free-beer ones. They're going to be like Oracle and work with Red Hat and Novell, and someday Ubuntu. If for some reason they release their application under a FOSS license they still don't have to support a zillion different distros, because the differences between different distros are way more minor than the differences between the various Unixes. Distro maintainers take care of packaging. The majority of Linux is either Red Hat-derived or Debian-derived, so that makes only two package formats to worry about if the vendor wants to supply their own binaries. Plus there are many examples of closed, proprietary binaries having successful universal Linux install scripts such as OpenOffice in the old days, Adobe Flash and Acrobat Reader, NVidia drivers, and Skype. So the vendor could certainly try expand their market beyond RHEL and SUSE without undue strain. I wouldn't dismiss the different Windows versions so quickly. Sure, Microsoft and its hardware partners would love for customers to replace everything every time a new Windows is released. But in the real world a lot of customers are understandably averse to wasting that kind of money, so backwards compatibility is still important to application vendors. |
| caitlyn Jun 08, 2009 12:42 PM EDT |
Quoting:The majority of Linux is either Red Hat-derived or Debian-derived, so that makes only two package formats to worry about if the vendor wants to supply their own binaries. Minor nit to pick: SUSE was originally Slackware based, not Red Hat based. It does use rpm for packaging so in terms of package formats it is compatible with Red Hat. Otherwise it really has very little Red Hat heritage. ...but, yeah, an rpm and a deb package and you're done. If the libraries are statically compiled into the package you pretty much avoid dependency issues as well and make the package more portable between distros. |
| tuxchick Jun 08, 2009 12:55 PM EDT |
I didn't know that SUSE was Slackware-based, I always thought it was a Red Hat child. Amazing what a person can learn wasting time I mean expanding their knowledge on forums. |
| Steven_Rosenber Jun 08, 2009 1:06 PM EDT |
If a software company has a proprietary application that's compelling enough, they can pretty much tell users that it only runs on such and such hardware and on such and such operating systems. Look at professional video editing. Avid (www.avid.com) clients run on Windows, and the company is very specific about what specs are required in hardware and software (and those specs are surprisingly low for one reason or other). Avid does some server products on Windows, but there are plenty it offers for Linux, and they require RHEL 5, I believe. They even have an app called Alienbrain (http://www.avid.com/products/alienbrain/index.asp), which is described as "asset management for artists," which encompasses file management, sharing and version control aimed at artists in the entertainment industry. It's a crazy mix of platforms, but at least Avid at some level recognizes the existence of OSes that aren't MS Windows. It also has to acknowledge that when it comes to professional image editing, FOSS may be a minor player but most pros are still using proprietary tools; and when you get into the realm of video and animation, you're pretty much in the same situation. Avid's Alienbrain (who names these things, anyway?) requires Windows Server, yet offers client software for Windows, Mac AND Linux |
| caitlyn Jun 08, 2009 1:59 PM EDT |
Following up on Steven's point: all the major Hollywood animation companies run Linux to produce their films. They used to run SGI Irix. High end 3D graphical applications like Maya and Houdini were ported from SGI to Linux years ago. Linux is the primary platform for these specialized proprietary apps. |
| nicsmr Jun 08, 2009 2:41 PM EDT |
@ jdixon.... I meant enterprise DESKTOP/LAPTOP Linuxes or workstation linuxes. As I previously mentioned RedHat is out. SUSE is a good contender and there are other also rans. There used to be a couple of good Canadian builds out there, one I know is no more due to the death of its developer and the others ??? We already have several Red Hat servers running our test and development Oracle Database engines. and those are the ones that never give us any trouble. The production ones that run on windows 2003 are always paging the server techs. @ tuxchick... That bazillion distros is what's going to kill linux. Choice is choice but it's like when you go to a restaurant with a thick volume for a menu... and can't decide what to eat so let stick with the mushroom burger (or soy burger for the others out there) since that's what I always when I can't decide. I know, not a good analogy. Better the devil you know hat the one you don't. Also did I ever tell you the one about how a Open Office trashed My Linux desktop? I will when I stop seeing red everytime I think about it. or when I installed Ubuntu Studio 9.whateverversio fresh from a disk and I could not run an apt-get upgrade because it stalled at the sixth package and locked my machine so solidly. I had to cold boot it 3 time to get back at a normal desktop each time I tried something to fix it. Yep real good stuff. Calm down nick... @ Caytlin A debian package and the same Ubuntu debian package are NOT exactly the same. I'll stop at that before I rant again. Here in our environment there is very little animation going on except immediatly before quiting time...;-} @ Steven.. It's nice that artists have something to manage their assets, but I'm talking a civic government here with thousands of PCs' and employees with, at last count, 1100 applications a lot home built by us or custom built for us and a lot off the shelf at different software levels. That's individual packages not including the MS office suite of fine products. Converting that to open source is going to be a nightmare. |
| tuxchick Jun 08, 2009 3:46 PM EDT |
never mind,move along, nothing to see! Nope, no comment here. Space for rent! |
| jdixon Jun 08, 2009 3:55 PM EDT |
> As I previously mentioned RedHat is out. Why? They offer an enterprise desktop. See http://www.redhat.com/rhel/desktop/ for all the details. > Converting that to open source is going to be a nightmare. Which is why you need to start implementing the changes (mostly using open standards) today. Yes, I know that's easier said then done, but the process has to start sometime. Of course, if you're like me, you have absolutely no say in such decisions. :( |
| tuxchick Jun 08, 2009 4:02 PM EDT |
Wow, this started out about CAD applications. Then what it would take to support high-end specialty apps on Linux. Then a stubborn, senseless repetition of "too many Linuxes, oh noes!" RHEL is mysteriously no good. Now it's 'Linux will never work because we have over 1100 apps to migrate.' And an alleged fatal Ubuntu flaw for spice. All done in the same style as Claus. Let's see, what will change next? What wild tangent grasped from thin air will grace this thread? |
| caitlyn Jun 08, 2009 4:03 PM EDT |
Even baseball stadiums seem to have done away with astorturf. |
| Sander_Marechal Jun 08, 2009 4:37 PM EDT |
Quoting:A debian package and the same Ubuntu debian package are NOT exactly the same. Uh, yes they are. For third party applications it's all the same. Just install to /opt, use XDG for a couple of basic things like creating desktop/menu items and bob's your uncle. The differences between Debian and Ubuntu only stand out in their own repository packages. And that's handles by their own packagers. |
| hkwint Jun 08, 2009 5:18 PM EDT |
Quoting:High end 3D graphical applications like Maya... ...Linux is the primary platform for these specialized proprietary apps. Not now Maya is from AutoDesk. All their products (I'm aware of) only run on Windows; and Maya's multi-platform support for end-consumers may as well be temporary. Quoting:Unix used to own this market, what the heck happened? I'm probably too young to understand or explain, but let's give it a try: Hardware became cheaper, CAD-software became cheaper, advances in 3D-acceleration on the hardware and software side, faster processors, proprietary UNIX faded, people started to use Windows, companies liked to standardize on one OS for the whole company, and voila, engineers had to use Windows 'because the whole company did'. So there started to exist a demand for CAD-software that runs on Windows; and a few players survived. There has always been 'expensive CAD' running on UNIX like CATIA, NX and such, and 'cheap CAD' like AutoCAD, and a bit of a vacuüm in between those. Several companies started filling those vacuüms with new Windows-products like SolidWorks and Solid Edge, and after a consolidation round only Dassault, AutoDesk, PTC, Bentley and Siemens were left as producers of CAD systems. Because of SolidWorks and SolidEdge - and later Autodesks response to those with Inventor - there was a 'mid end' of CAD-products only running on Windows, and they served the needs of users who used high end products before. This meant high-end products had to become cheaper to compete. One possible solution to become cheaper is stop multi-OS support and make sure the CAD-apps run on a 'cheap operating system' such as Windows. Linux was not popular when that decision was made I guess; and because of the OEM-channels distribution agreements and Dell etc. emerged, a lot of companies started standardizing on Windows. Dassault decided to stop Unix-support for CATIA after v5; Bentley decided to stop Unix support for Microstation, AutoDesk never supported anything beyond Windows after 1992 I guess. Only Pro/E and Siemens with its high-end NX are left nowadays; and I wouldn't be surprised if PTC is going to drop Unix as well in the near future. So 'what the heck happened': Cheaper platforms such as x86 and Windows with the same CAD-capabilities as the old, more expensive platforms became available; and companies could migrate from high-end CAD-software to mid-end CAD-software; the latter being developed for Windows only. |
| caitlyn Jun 17, 2009 8:14 PM EDT |
[quote]Not now Maya is from AutoDesk. All their products (I'm aware of) only run on Windows; and Maya's multi-platform support for end-consumers may as well be temporary.[quote] Without violating my NDA with a former employed I will say that if support for and development of Maya for Linux is dropped the company would be losing many millions of dollars from very large and famous customers. These customers migrated to Linux because Maya was ported from SGI. They already have ruled out Windows as simply unable to scale up to their needs. It is distinctly possible that Autocad may not publicly advertise Maya for Linux now. I seriously doubt they have dropped support or development. |
| hkwint Jun 18, 2009 6:32 AM EDT |
Great to hear Caitlyn. Yesterday I also came across PythonOCC: http://www.pythonocc.org/ It seems to be a Python-wrapper for the industrial grade CAD-library OpenCASCADE. Advances are still mate, albeit small. |
| Steven_Rosenber Jun 18, 2009 5:58 PM EDT |
I hadn't checked this thread in awhile ... surprised to see it's still going. Regarding Photoshop vs. GIMP: I do a lot of image editing; not art creation but things such as taking photos and cropping, sizing, shrinking file size, sharpening, etc., for Web only and not ever for print. I tend to use anything but Photoshop, since I don't have it on my XP box. For my needs, Photoshop Elements can probably do everything I need. Don't have that either. On PC, I do have the GIMP, but I tend to use the free-for-personal-use but closed-source Irfanview because it's super-fast and does 99 percent of what I need. It handles the IPTC code in JPEGs, something that helps me immensely. I can usually get around needing the IPTC tags when I'm using either the GIMP or MtPaint, a great, extremely light image editor in Linux. But I'd rather not have to. For somebody who really depends on Photoshop, I know that many versions run in WINE, and I'm not against using either that non-emulator or a VM to get at a certain application. On my OpenBSD boxes, I used a few Linux apps that run under emulation, mostly flawlessly -- not always but mostly. Whether it's the GIMP, image editing, video editing, CAD or what have you, I hope there will be more solutions, as opposed to fewer, as the years go on. |
| Steven_Rosenber Jun 18, 2009 6:04 PM EDT |
@caitlyn The Autodesk site lists compatibility for Autodesk Maya (http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=...) as: Quoting:The 32-bit version of Autodesk® Maya® 2009 software is supported on any of the following operating systems: "boutique distributions" -- that's an interesting way of putting it. What say we pick up that term to describe distros that aren't RHEL 4 or FC 8? At least I got my laugh for the day. |
| caitlyn Jun 18, 2009 6:09 PM EDT |
Well... at least we know that Maya for Linux is alive and well. I couldn't imagine any company walking away from that much business. I expect support for RHEL 5 will come as customers demand it. |
| Steven_Rosenber Jun 18, 2009 6:24 PM EDT |
You know, if you're running a workstation for a single purpose, a single application, I can see running RHEL 4 as long as the thing will continue to function on the necessary hardware. |
| caitlyn Jun 18, 2009 7:00 PM EDT |
RHEL 4, like all RHEL releases, has a seven year lifespan. It was released at the beginning of 2005 so there are only two and a half years left. I expect in the next year customers will begin to pressue Autodesk if they haven't already. I don't disagree with you, Steven, but big companies and organizations are paranoid about being out of support. |
| nicsmr Jun 18, 2009 8:06 PM EDT |
@ Caitlin and whoever read my other thread... My sincerest apologies. An extremely bad day at work is my only excuse. As for Maya... I looked over the autodesk web site, downloaded and viewed several demo videos and some of the graphics. Very impressive indeed. But again all we need is Autocad 200X, plain 2D as it is integrated tightly with 2 other products one a big (software wise) facilities maintenance/management system that stores autocad floor plans and the other is an electronic document managment system that is tightly integrated with autocad . We do little if no 3d work as far as I know so Maya is not exactly what we need. But maybe a big time customer like our corp. could sway autodesk to build for Linux. We could also negotiate an arrangement with companies like codeweavers, makers of crossover for linux, to put a solution together for us and other shops on their fasttrack, for a fee of course. |
| caitlyn Jun 18, 2009 8:15 PM EDT |
There certainly is no harm in approaching vendors like Autodesk or Codeweavers. They obviously have some in house Linux capability so if the order would be large enough you may, indeed, be able to sway them. You have nothing to lose by trying. One thing that you can count on: certain name brand Windows software simply won't be ported. Some companies don't have the resources to make the investment or have doubts about what sales would be like. Others may have agreements with Microsoft that they rightly or wrongly fear might be in jeapordy if they went to another platform. Anyone who is heavily invested in a given Windows app may be a poor candidate for migration. Since you have a situation with a mandated (top down) demand for migration you may be looking at an expensive or resource intensive process of effectively starting from scratch with something else. |
| Steven_Rosenber Jun 18, 2009 8:24 PM EDT |
@nicsmr Sometimes you just have to have a mixed shop, with desktops running various OSes. At my shop, we've got many hundreds of XP boxes, a few dozen Macs, with X86 servers running everything from RHEL and CentOS. We've also got a whole lot of Sun equipment. My little Linux laptop swims alone in these waters. So if your shop wants to run some FOSS operating systems, perhaps there are people who's needs can be met by a Linux desktop, and in those cases it makes a lot of sense to go in that direction. Now that so many apps are being "delivered" via the browser, Linux is becoming more viable as a desktop choice all the time. |
| nicsmr Jun 19, 2009 12:05 AM EDT |
@ Caitlin Absolutely nothing to loose by asking them. It could be quite profitable for some. As I said before, what we save in licensing fees using open source software or operating systems a portion can be infused back into open source developers, distributions we choose to use, etc... as well as when we build up expertise our work can be open sourced too. To be frank, this concept of paying a portion of the savings back to the open source community is something that came out at the very beginning of our discussions. @Steven_Rosenber We figured from the start that that would probably be what happens. But we could minimize windows servers for those apps that need it and convert our file, print, and media server servers to a linux distro (or two) depending n the function. If on those windows pc's we could maximize the use of Open Source software that could also be a savings that, again, could be infused back into the community (see above). We have to be careful with the public's purse (civic watchdogs, accountants (ie the hated auditors) et al..) and show how we're getting value for what we "donate" back to the community. "nuff said for tonight. I still have to pack up the house so that the contents of the main floor can be moved into a big container sitting on our driveway. Renovations begin next Friday. Another no sleeper tonight. Gotto go. Goodnight All |
| jdixon Jun 19, 2009 12:37 AM EDT |
> ...all we need is Autocad 200X, plain 2D... A9Cad is Windows based, but it's free as in beer, and you could try running it with Wine or Crossover. Their web page says: "Support DWG and DXF format up to DWG/DXF 2000". From what I understand, it's very much an Autocad work alike. OK, WineHQ says A9Cad has a gold rating, with only the help not working. I'd say you should take a look. Here's a thread on the Autocad forums about Autocad and Linux: http://discussion.autodesk.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=3... |
| nicsmr Jun 19, 2009 1:37 AM EDT |
Had to take a breather...Packing is no fun at all. @ jdixon I'll certainly look into A9CAD. Like I said in my last posting, autocad is one part the other is the tight integration with our other software. That forum article/entry you referred me to sure has been discussed for a long time. Four and a half years. So it's obviously not a new subject. People have been pondering on it for some time. Hope autodesk is pondering too |
| jdixon Jun 19, 2009 7:23 AM EDT |
> So it's obviously not a new subject. People have been pondering on it for some time. Hope autodesk is pondering too I'm sure they are, but as someone in the discussion said, they're not holding their breath. :( |
| jdixon Jun 19, 2009 9:24 AM EDT |
> Like I said in my last posting, autocad is one part the other is the tight integration with our other software. If that integration depends on the inner workings of Autocad, then all bets are off. However, if it only depends on the file formatting, then A9Cad may well be an option. Like I said, it's worth a look. I know about it because I had to look for an Autocad replacement here at work once, and it was the best of the options I could find. |
| nicsmr Jun 19, 2009 2:26 PM EDT |
I have two questions (for now) regarding licensing when using open source software at the corporate level. I'm rather naive when it comes to this... Say we decide to switch to Open Office, is there any licensing involved or we can use it gratis and pay for support from OOo? We would be installing on 4-5 thousand pc's, laptops,tablets. If we decide to use MySQL at the corporate level to replace mssql server on some of our home developed apps same question applies? Thank for everything... advice, criticism, information and cajoling. Have a great weekend. NicSmr |
| caitlyn Jun 19, 2009 2:32 PM EDT |
Quoting:Say we decide to switch to Open Office, is there any licensing involved or we can use it gratis and pay for support from OOo? We would be installing on 4-5 thousand pc's, laptops,tablets. What you probably want is Star Office from Sun Microsystems. It is essentially OpenOffice plus a few proprietary filters for document conversion with corporate support available. The idea was that Star Office is the supported, commercial version and OpenOffice is the free version without support. Third parties (consulting firms) will support OpenOffice but Sun won't. OpenOffice is essentially a recompile of Star Office with nothing proprietary. Quoting: If we decide to use MySQL at the corporate level to replace mssql server on some of our home developed apps same question applies? Yes, there is commercial MySQL support for MySQL AB, which is part of Sun, which was recently purchased by Oracle. |
| nicsmr Jun 19, 2009 3:00 PM EDT |
@Caitlyn Thanks for that... Off topic... here we're not quite sure about what to think about the future of MySQL now that Oracle has injested it. We are an Oracle shop here. It's one of the pillars of our GIS, PeopleSoft and SAP systems. We use other dbms's to run vendor apps that require them (DB2, MS SQL server, a coupe of OLD HP minicomputer databases that I don't remember the name off and surprisingly 2 MySQL systems). Thanks Again and have a great weekend. It's finally summer here. Damm mosqitoes... NicSmr |
| caitlyn Jun 19, 2009 3:24 PM EDT |
Well... you have two options. Oracle is developed on Linux and their support for the major (read: commercial) Linux distros is generally very good. You could stay with Oracle and just change the underlying OS (Windows -> Linux) and arguably be better off not just in terms of security, performance, and scalability of the OS but also for being on the native Oracle platform. I also don't know what will happen with MySQL. My guess is that it won't die. It's FOSS, so if Oracle drops it someone else can and likely will pick it up. That wouldn't be a bad outcome. More likely is that Oracle will treat it as the red headed stepchild and give it little backing or resources while trying to maintain control. If that happens someone could and likely would fork the project. It is very, very difficult to stymie or kill an Open Source project :) If Oracle realizes this their best approach would be to continue MySQL AB as a separate business unit. That would likely be the best for everyone concerned. I'm not saying your concerns about MySQL aren't justified or valid. They may well be. I just don't believe that Oracle will be able to kill or even seriously damage MySQL. |
| nicsmr Jun 19, 2009 3:35 PM EDT |
Actually we have a couple of red hat servers running development ORACLE DB. I just mentioned that we were big time oracle users so a transistion to red hat server would be almost painless (i just jinxed it, didn't I?). I believe that MySQL has already been forked by none other than Monty himself. He explained a bit about it at the linuxfest NW in Bellinghan WA in April. A great event BTY. What oracle will do will be a mystery until it happens, we can only hope they maintain it properly. If not there is always Postgress... |
| bigg Jun 19, 2009 3:49 PM EDT |
As concerns MySQL, you may wish to read this: http://practical-tech.com/development/mysql-forks/ Even before the Oracle purchase of Sun, Monty was already working on his fork. His company also offers 24/7 support. |
| caitlyn Jun 19, 2009 3:58 PM EDT |
There you go... I should have followed that more closely. I should also mention that the GIS app EPA was running had a PostgreSQL back end. Depending on what you are doing Postgres may be a viable alternative. |
| nicsmr Jun 19, 2009 4:08 PM EDT |
@Caitlyn and Bigg In my previous post I mentioned that I heard Monty himself speak about the fork he created at the Linuxfest NW. If I'm not mistaken he named it after his daughter. I forget the name. |
| bigg Jun 19, 2009 4:25 PM EDT |
MariaDB |
| nicsmr Jun 19, 2009 4:33 PM EDT |
@bigg Yes that's it. thanks |
| hkwint Jun 19, 2009 5:02 PM EDT |
Thought it might be nice to mention, I did make very small progress on the 'mechanical CAD' side: Tried installing AD Inventor 2008 on Wine 1.1.23, but it halted after it "couldn't find the CD", while clearly the d:/ directory in ~/.wine/ was linked to the directory where I loop-mounted the image of the first CD. Bit sad, don't know how to progress any further. Good news is I successfully installed .NET framework 2.0 in wine, which is pretty amazing on its own, and I worked around another bug running a vim-script on the .wine/system.reg file (now, if only that could be done in Windows!) And the installation did initialize. Then it asks me for the CD. Funny thing is, as I mentioned earlier, AD AutoCAD (Mechanical) is part of AD Inventor; until now I haven't found a way to install A'CAD without Inventor. Or I should use an old version or something. Also looked at FreeCAD again (not to be confused with freeCAD app or FreeCAD.com directory, kinda lame all these names) and they made some small progress too; though it seems they only made a 'roadmap'. Still lack of developers on their part however. http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/free-cad/index.php?tit... And the devs of PythonOCC made a Quoting:CADViewer, a sample app that can load/display STEP/IGES/STL/BRep files http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/free-cad/index.php?tit... which sure is a nice Free Software wrapper* to at least view STEP, IGES, STL and BRep in Linux. DXF files can be viewed in Linux using QCad; but I'm not sure if the LGPL version of it can be used in corp env. however. |
| hkwint Jun 19, 2009 5:07 PM EDT |
@nicsmr: (Warning: OOo file) see list for OOo consultants/support companies worldwide: http://bizdev.openoffice.org/consultants.ods |
| Sander_Marechal Jun 19, 2009 7:39 PM EDT |
Quoting:Actually we have a couple of red hat servers running development ORACLE DB. If you are going to move to Oracle proper on Linux then they will probably offer you Unbreakable Linux instead. That's Red Hat under another name. Everything else is the same down to the last bit. Oracle offers support for both their database as well as for Unbreakable Linux. That means you only have one vendor to deal with instead of two :-) |
| TxtEdMacs Jun 20, 2009 8:27 AM EDT |
Quoting: ... Oracle offers support for both their database as well as for Unbreakable Linux. That means you only have one vendor to deal with instead of two ...[warning serious] [admission] I have had no personal experience with Oracle support, however, I have seen too many complaints about the quality of Oracle support for their database for lesser companies to be comfortable recommending Oracle to cover both its db and the OS it runs upon. I can be of no direct help here, however, I would recommend researching the experiences of similar sized companies before I would rely upon Oracle solely. I have seen Linux Red Hat servers moved into a fairly large concern, from a distance* and I was impressed. While the same company also changed from their default database to Oracle, I did not hear of their going totally with Oracle for support on their Linux servers. However, this may have predated the Oracle clone and I might not have access to the information on changes in their support programs. This was an international concern where despite being at a major location, I was not privy to much of the software policy decisions. YBT * Indeed, it was my inherent interest in Linux that led me to trip across the internal chats where the introduction of Linux was being performed. Once in, Linux became the default server of choice, as I heard personally** from the departing CIO. ** That is, I was in the room. [/end serious stuff] |
| jdixon Jun 20, 2009 11:49 AM EDT |
> I have seen too many complaints about the quality of Oracle support for their database for lesser companies to be comfortable recommending Oracle to cover both its db and the OS it runs upon. While I can't speak to Oracle support, everyone I've ever encountered who uses Red Hat says their support is excellent. And I know their old Red Hat Linux knowledge base support was second to none, as I used it frequently answering questions online. |
| caitlyn Jun 20, 2009 4:37 PM EDT |
I am likely biased because I spent seven months as part of the Red Hat support system (as a consultant) and was offered a permanent position. (I declined it as the heavy travel requirement was seriously affecting my health and therfore my job performance as well.) IMHO, Red Hat support is first rate. They have top notch people who know their stuff. AFAIK Red Hat Enterprise Linux is still an officially supported platform for Oracle. (CentOS is not.) That means that while Oracle may want to sell you Unbreakable Linux and they may push it heavily you can still decline and just buy the database. My main complaint with Oracle support is that they are often slow to patch security vulnerabilities or to support dot releases to RHEL which close security vulnerabilities. You often have to wait months with a known vulnerability on your server before you can patch without risking seriously breaking Oracle. A change in kernel (or kernel patches) often results in breakage. |
| Sander_Marechal Jun 21, 2009 6:54 AM EDT |
You may be right about the respective quality of Red Hat v.s. Oracle support. However there is an advantage of just having to talk to a single vendor. If something doesn't work then Oracle should be able to solve. With multiple vendors you always run the risk that Oracle says it's a problem with Red Hat and Red Hat says it's an Oracle problem. |
| gus3 Jun 21, 2009 7:46 AM EDT |
Well, if Oracle is certified to run on RHEL4, and you've installed Oracle on RHEL4, and then Oracle isn't working, you take it to Oracle and say, "YOU said this would run!". Red Hat doesn't care for the most part what you run on their system, so Oracle's bumps and bruises isn't Red Hat's problem. |
| caitlyn Jun 21, 2009 1:19 PM EDT |
Sander, if it's a single purpose server that might make sense if Oracle service is now up to snuff. If the database backend is sharing a server with something else (i.e.: a front-end app) going with Oracle for the OS won't solve the multiple vendor issue. In my experience neither Oracle nor Red Hat get into the finger pointing game. Novell does and is horrible that way. Red Hat and Oracle not so much. |
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