I am currently on win10 but have been toying with mint and liking it. I intend on fully switching over soon. I have also been toying with the idea of some simple 3D modeling, like making custom parts for projects around my house. Maybe using a CAD software to generate stls for a 3D print or using it to spec out parts for a design made out of aluminum extrusion (like 8020) little things like that. I was thinking about getting a solidworks hobbyist license for 45 a year but solidworks doesn’t support Linux. I could keep a Windows dual boot HDD, but fuck that. Any suggestions on a CAD software that fits? Have a gaming PC with a 3060 and some beefy hardware.
really rough to use honestly. I’d rather use non-FOSS (on shape) while I wait for this to hit the “blender inflection point” and actually get good.
I agree with the people suggesting Onshape.
But if you like programming, OpenSCAD can be really interesting.
+1 for openscad. I switched over from Fusion 360 back when autodesk changed the personal use license in 2020.
It takes a bit to get used to it, but once you’ve made a few parts you begin to see how powerful it can really be.
Its also super lightweight, so you can run it on most systems without any issues. I’ve ran in on a chromebook before.
The only thing I miss about fusion 360 is an easy way to add fillets to parts, that can be tricky in openscad. I use chamfers for the most part though, so I don’t miss it much.
The only thing I miss about fusion 360 is an easy way to add fillets to parts, that can be tricky in openscad. I use chamfers for the most part though, so I don’t miss it much.
There’s an OpenSCAD add-on lib called BOSL that offers primitives with built-in fillet options (plus a wide array of other stuff, like premodeled metric bolts). Admittedly it spends a lot of time reinventing the wheel, but I’ve found it useful from time to time.
There’s also CadQuery, which I find more intuitive to use than openscand: https://cadquery.readthedocs.io/en/latest/intro.html
I’ve tried out FreeCAD and it’s decent - but it’s really tough to get a hang of. Ondsel has a bit of a better interface imo and is based directly off of FreeCAD. Maybe give either of those a shot?
Onshape hands down. Browser based so there’s no compatibility issues. It’s super easy to use and pretty powerful. Its free for hobbiests (the caveat being your models will be publically accessible). We use it exclusively at work and it’s been awesome.
I’d love a good Foss CAD package but there are too many issues with the current ones for me to make the jump.
Ondsel is great. It is an engineering focused branch of freecad. They have solved a lot of the issues and have made the UI/UX a lot smoother.
Finally libre cad that actually is usable!
The thing I’m struggling with is finding beginner videos for ondsel. The ui is super different, so freecad videos don’t help much. Any suggestions?
I found the skill set pretty transferable from FreeCAD (albeit much more usable). That being said I had used solidworks for long time prior.
Main thing I would say is to make sure you are in the relevant workbench and use the tasks menu (starts on the right of the screen)
