Zorba said:
I'm DONE with windows AND Mac. Win 7 was "Peak windows".

This solidworks for Linux looks interesting for sure!

I'm running Ubuntu - its the closest to "Just works" that I've found, although I may switch it to Kubuntu eventually. I've never really cared for Gnome, and the latest version is a bit smartphone-esque.

I use Kubuntu! Love it. Gnome is too mac-like in its philosophy. KDE is more Win-7ish in it's design philosophy, and unlike Gnome will still let you tweak everything to your hearts content.

chili_pepper said:
I hear ya, but I've resorted to running a NAS with RAID for local network. If I need something offsite, I own a domain and pay for a chunk of server space, my own personal, private cloud, if you will.

I do similar, but I also use Duplicati w/ Backblaze B2 as a backend for offsite. Just in case the building burns down.

Zorba said:
Ditto that - I switched back to Linux after a 25 year hiatus with Mac. I didn't know Fusion forced cloud connectivity - that's just a solution for a non-existent problem, like so much else is these days.

Its also my understanding that SolidWorks has some kind of "hobbyist" deal going. If that's the case, and you can run it, as far as I'm concerned the buck stops there. Dunno if they force cloud stuff or not - they didn't when I retired 8+ years ago.

I do need to install FreeCAD - I'm not much on appimages, snaps, etc, preferring a native install - but ya gotta do whatcha gotta do!

Yeah, they've got a hobbyist deal. But the limit is you must not make more than $1k from your designs or you're in violation of the license. And then it becomes $680/yr. I know I'm not making any money but I have a few models I want to start selling and I don't want my cheap plastic crap tied to that. I am by no means a professional, I don't want to pay professional prices.

k1n3k said:
Truthfully, after the latest update I need to take a second look at it. I'm 100% solidworks for modeling, then Fusion360 for cam. There were some weird things in Freecad last time I tried it that just made it totally unpalatable for me. The update may have changed some of the stuff in it that I couldn't tolerate.

If it weren't for Solidworks, I'd go back to Linux for my DD/gaming rig. Windows 11 burned me when I was doing a CTF for a pentest job interview. There is a bug that caused my VM to inexplicably lose connectivity every hours and no rhyme or reason to getting it working again... Plus with the Copilot bullshit, telemetry and everything else, i'm done with windows. But there is hope!

https://github.com/cryinkfly/SOLIDWORKS-for-Linux

The Topo naming problem has basically been fixed as much as it can, so editing nodes up the tree don't break things anymore, unless you do something really dumb. The new official Assembly workbench is nice too. The cheap plastic crap I want to sell, I actually broke it down into lego-like pieces, and use the Assembly workbench to snap it all together, and then from there I can take the final assembly and export it as an STL. I won't lie, it can be a bit fiddly and slow because it's still Python under the covers and many things are still single-threaded. But it gets the job done for me.

This Solidworks for Linux, report back. But I wouldn't get your hopes up. Here's similar for Fusion https://github.com/cryinkfly/Autodesk-Fusion-360-for-Linux. Someone's also tried packaging it up as a Snap https://github.com/Thermionix/fusion360. I forget which one I finally got mostly working, but things like right-click menus don't display right. It's annoying enough that I gave up.

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