Three different versions of a free 2D CAD program made for three different operating systems, doesn’t exactly make a program 3D, but times are lean and we’ll take what we can get. If you’ve been gnawing the meaty bone of Windows or Mac OS hankering for the fatty goodness of open source drafting, you’r 2D line slappin’ dreams are coming true today.
Dassault has just released the Linux version of their 2D design tool, DraftSight.
As you may know, DraftSight is built on Graebert’s ARES platform. 8 months after Dassault launched DraftSight for Windows and 5 months after Graebert released their own version of ARES Commander for Linux, Dassault has launched DraftSight for Linux. There’s no word on all the Linux version which are supported, but if it lines up with what is offered by Greabert for ARES Linux it will look something like this…
- supports 32-bit versions of Ubuntu® 9.10 Gnome, Fedora® 11 Gnome, Suse® 11.2 Gnome, Mandriva® 2010 Gnome and KDE, or higher versions.
- does not support the specific Windows Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) and the export of Enhanced Windows Metafile (EMF) images.
- supports application development through Lisp, C/C++, and the DRX API. Windows specific technologies like VSTA, ActiveX, and COM. LISP encryption are not supported.
If you’ve used either the Windows or Mac versions of either ARES or DraftSight, you’ll notice the same UI and most of the same tools – simple, clean and just what you need to open up DWG’s and perform all the basic 2D operations and a few of the advanced. You can download DraftSight for Linux now.
In addition, Dassault is building a community around DraftSight. People of like mind, with the same questions you have can be found on SwYm, Facebook and Twitter.
