[Wine] Hardware requirements for running Wine+CAD software

[Martin Gregorie]

On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 4:02 AM, ipse lute <wineforum-user at winehq.org>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