Does any one know if Solidworks will ever have a linux / Ubuntu version. Our one year trial running Ubuntu as our core has been successful and now it is time to find replacements for the remaining Windows applications and phase out all the Win machines. It would be nice if Solidworks would port this to Linux however, I am open to suggestions (dreaming) of a linux substitute for Solidworks.
I imagine you already know that Draftsight is available for Ubuntu. (http://www.3ds.com/products-services/draftsight-cad-software/free-download/) I've tested it and it works stably.
However, I really don't think that Solidworks is heading that way anytime soon. Unfortunately, they must restrict development to the majority platforms. They have enough things to fix in the mainstream releases, in my opinion, that more platform forks would scatter their efforts.
Thank you for the cloud info. For us that is totally off the table because all of our core applications like Solidworks are not permitted to have a connection to the Internet due to security issues.
You may not have a choice one day.
That is why we are taking this very pro-active venture into non-windows software. Already Fusion 360 is cloud and even worse, Fusion 360 holds your files hostage if you do not stay on subscription....... Hopefully, Solidworks will not become cash strapped like their competitor and adopt that policy. Adobe is another one that forced us onto the cloud subscription and then shut down license servers so we could not re-install older legal desktop versions. We have learned our lesson well with internet security breaches and will not let any computer that is involved with core assets have an Internet connection.
Must be tough to do upgrades? So does that mean each user has two computers?
Depending on who it is 3 computers, its a heck of a lot cheaper and safer to operate that way. Our email is on an un-associated Internet provider so the their is no tie to our working network on the main gateway. Just use cheap laptops dedicated to email only and when an intrusion occurs who cares, nothing is lost. Secure net was commissioned and activated off site and all Windows updates installed and can no longer be updated. Since its off the internet who cares about security patches so updating Win is moot. Solidworks activates over email and after doing it a couple of times it only takes a few extra steps, I cannot disclose our download protocol for the updates. This would be much safer if Solidworks would send us a disk for the updates, no objections to paying for that service if it existed.
Got Solidworks 2016 working on ubuntu 18.04 using Vmware Workstation Player 15. I installed Ubuntu 18.04 and with it the Vulkan/messa drivers (don't know if that helps) with Nvidia 1060GT graphics card. Ideally would have loved to run SW on wine (as an environment ) so I tried to set all the parameters and even turned to playonlinux but no results. Something pointed me to Vmware , they seem to have good native graphics capability and so went down the path of setting up a virtual machine.
It runs well. Can save,edit build assemblies and much of the SW functionality. I gave the player the use of 8Gb RAM and 6 out of 12 processor threads and it's stable.
Did you have any problems activating the license?
Hey Fred
installed a fresh copy and just ran with the month trial. I don't think I will have a problem registering my copy.
Virtualbox has also OpenGL support, but some years ago when I tried it, it didn't work with SW...maybe it's better nowadays..
Its been while and I am curious if the license was activated using SW via a VM on Ubuntu. We only have a hand full of machines left that are Windows based and would like to toss them and go all Ubuntu. Please let me know if the license will activate.
Fred Fisher wrote:
Its been while and I am curious if the license was activated using SW via a VM on Ubuntu. We only have a hand full of machines left that are Windows based and would like to toss them and go all Ubuntu. Please let me know if the license will activate.
99.997% of users here have never used linux, especially with Solidworks. Why not try it and see? I imagine it would work if you use Wine, but you may want to do more research.
Windows applications on Ubuntu - Ask Ubuntu
Also forget about getting any type of support when things don't work correctly.
Also forget about getting any type of support when things don't work correctly.
I have that now, so what would be the difference. Cannot download the service packs from our slow DSL service. I have to take a laptop home and get on our high speed at the old facility to get it. Contacted our VAR several times regarding this and its an issue with Solidworks being to cheap regarding bandwith. Our VAR had us download some files from their FTP site and it worked. Sadly, they cannot get the current files up on their site to download, pretty sad that DS is too cheap to send me updates on a DVD. Sure don't seem to get much for what our maintenance costs.
It's never going to happen. If SolidWorks is one of your company's core applications then you're never going to escape the microsoft environment.
Hi,
I don't think a Linux version will be released.
SolidWorks in written in Visual Basic, if I'm not mistaken it's in Windows language. Maybe a Linux or Mac version will require a full rewrite of the software.
For any device:
SOLIDWORKS xDesign | SOLIDWORKS
Not with all SW features yet, but going forward all the time...
I think it would be easier to find an emulator or whatever to install windows app on that OS then to ask the software apps to re-write for a new OS? Not a hard declaration.. just wondering..
I have tried for many years to run SW under a Linux platform. If I could run SW will all the trimmings in Linux I would Burn my copies of windows in the back garden. I think the time is getting nearer now. There has been a disturbance in the force in the way platforms talk to hardware specially the graphics cards. The new Vulkan API has taken control of the talk between the software application (i.e. SW, games, office products) and the hardware i.e. Graphics,sound etc. Vulkan Talks directly to the hardware bypassing the platform (Windows or Linux) and memory maps more efficiently. I think SW might be forced to adhere to the new API or Wine (for Linux) and other virtual machines will get smoother.
Nvidia has Vulkan drivers for windows. Have a look at them. I usually use GeForce cards to Design in SW and usually one processor is doing all the work while the others just tick over. With Vulkan drivers all processors share the load and for me the performance is a lot better.
I don't work for SolidWorks, and can't speak for them, but since they don't have a version for Macs I doubt if they'll develop one for Linux.