License issues, Linux, VM and the future of Alibre
- Thread starter oldbrad
- Start date
Alexander
Senior Member
Let me know how V4 is when you get chance. Cheers !
bigseb
Alibre Super User
It won't be any time soon. Too busy.
One reason I just voted for linux instead of Mac OS is that I now work for Red Hat and have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation on my laptop for a year. It's really great. I have been running Alibre on a virtual machine on my 2011 vintage MacBook Pro using VM Ware Fusion. Now, Apple has abandoned my hardware, I can't upgrade to the next version of the OS, so I'm saying goodbye to Macs after 13 years or personal and work Macs. I own a Windows 10 license, I will probably just create a VM on my linux laptop: I have a dock with two 24" Displayport/HDMI monitors. If I find I need more horsepower or a better graphics card I might buy a dedicated server for Alibre and run Windows 10 on bare metal, but we'll see.
Hunter
Senior Member
Linux is great (I run a laptop with Fedora 32 and use it almost daily), but all my other engineering software (like my FEA software) runs on Win, so I'm stuck. There is no way that it will be profitable for Alibre to port to Linux or even Mac, and I'd rather have all that programming effort going in to new features and fixing niggles in the software.
And then, hypothetically, if Alibre decided to port to Linux, then starts the inevitable distro flame war. I can already see it; Ubuntu vs Mint vs Debian vs OpenSUSE vs Arch vs CentOS, vs ... It never stops. Then there is Gnome vs KDE desktop, yet another flame war. No thanks. If you're absolutely desperate for a professional Linux CAD distro, there is a good one out of the Czech republic, just Google it.
PTC dropped Linux support circa 2004/5 for Creo (still Pro/E back then), so that should tell you about it being a business case or not. And they recently bought Onshape, so they know where things are heading...
And then, hypothetically, if Alibre decided to port to Linux, then starts the inevitable distro flame war. I can already see it; Ubuntu vs Mint vs Debian vs OpenSUSE vs Arch vs CentOS, vs ... It never stops. Then there is Gnome vs KDE desktop, yet another flame war. No thanks. If you're absolutely desperate for a professional Linux CAD distro, there is a good one out of the Czech republic, just Google it.
PTC dropped Linux support circa 2004/5 for Creo (still Pro/E back then), so that should tell you about it being a business case or not. And they recently bought Onshape, so they know where things are heading...
axeme
Member
I've been using Linux since 1994-ish and I completely moved away from any windows installs in the early 2010s. For my needs, other than Alibre, there isn't anything a Linux distro can't do. Alibre is only run in a VM with no internet access except for the brief time it needs to perform a license check. Now that Steam has Proton and Vulkan even the vast majority of my library of 500+ games run on Linux now.
If Alibre was supported only on distros that have paid support, like Red Hat and Ubuntu, used a solid base environment like Qt or wxWidgets, I don't think there would be many flamewars or technical issues. Well, at least not like Emacs vs. vi, or win10 wiped out a win 7 install when it wasn't asked for. This would mean that it would have to be redesigned from the ground up to be mostly system agnostic, which I doubt would ever happen.
It would awesome for more companies to move away from windows but I can understand most of the reasons for staying there. One day I hope for a microsoft-free world, but I'm not seeing that anytime soon.
If Alibre was supported only on distros that have paid support, like Red Hat and Ubuntu, used a solid base environment like Qt or wxWidgets, I don't think there would be many flamewars or technical issues. Well, at least not like Emacs vs. vi, or win10 wiped out a win 7 install when it wasn't asked for. This would mean that it would have to be redesigned from the ground up to be mostly system agnostic, which I doubt would ever happen.
It would awesome for more companies to move away from windows but I can understand most of the reasons for staying there. One day I hope for a microsoft-free world, but I'm not seeing that anytime soon.
a123qwertz567
Member
I found no other thread, so I will post here. I just wanted to give the "linux people" of the alibre community a short info/update.
Because I was sick of using FreeCAD as my Linux CAD (at home) I took the bitter pill and setup a VM with W10. Have to use it under Windows at work anyways.... It is qemu based and managed with virsh and virt-manager. The special thing is I used PCI passtrough via vifo to give the VM a dedicated GPU and output to a seperate physical display. And the performance is quite pleasing I must say. With mouse and keyboard shared via edev and binded to machine by virtio it is a almost seamless way of working with this VM.
The "shaving head" from the example site was die biggest model I could find to test the performance for now. I will do some more testing an modeling in the next weeks to find the limits. Maybe someone wants to share a bigger model for testing. I just have smaller assemblies at home.
If someone is interested in more details let me know. Or move this to a better fitting place on the forums
Because I was sick of using FreeCAD as my Linux CAD (at home) I took the bitter pill and setup a VM with W10. Have to use it under Windows at work anyways.... It is qemu based and managed with virsh and virt-manager. The special thing is I used PCI passtrough via vifo to give the VM a dedicated GPU and output to a seperate physical display. And the performance is quite pleasing I must say. With mouse and keyboard shared via edev and binded to machine by virtio it is a almost seamless way of working with this VM.
The "shaving head" from the example site was die biggest model I could find to test the performance for now. I will do some more testing an modeling in the next weeks to find the limits. Maybe someone wants to share a bigger model for testing. I just have smaller assemblies at home.
If someone is interested in more details let me know. Or move this to a better fitting place on the forums
I have a nearly identical set up except I don't have a PCI passthrough. Can you describe that in more detail? I have Alibre running in a Win10 VM and it is pretty laggy and would love to speed it up. I will probably always have to have a Windows VM but we are moving all development to Linux at work. Windows is dying for engineering, IMHO.I found no other thread, so I will post here. I just wanted to give the "linux people" of the alibre community a short info/update.
Because I was sick of using FreeCAD as my Linux CAD (at home) I took the bitter pill and setup a VM with W10. Have to use it under Windows at work anyways.... It is qemu based and managed with virsh and virt-manager. The special thing is I used PCI passtrough via vifo to give the VM a dedicated GPU and output to a seperate physical display. And the performance is quite pleasing I must say. With mouse and keyboard shared via edev and binded to machine by virtio it is a almost seamless way of working with this VM.
The "shaving head" from the example site was die biggest model I could find to test the performance for now. I will do some more testing an modeling in the next weeks to find the limits. Maybe someone wants to share a bigger model for testing. I just have smaller assemblies at home.
If someone is interested in more details let me know. Or move this to a better fitting place on the forums
bigseb
Alibre Super User
Not a chance. Windows works and most companies, particularly the larger ones, are heavily invested in Windows. Windows just happens to offer more all round usability, not just for CAD but also for CAM, bookkeeping/timekeeping, product management, stock and inventory control, even basic office functions like email and spreadsheets. It's the standard. And a good one too.
I used to be in favour of a Linux version. Not anymore. The Windows software works. Everyone else uses Windows i.e. clients and suppliers. I just want things to work and Windows does that.
My opinion.
lgrfbs
New Member
As I see it, if there is to be a Linux version of Alibre Design, it must be via another company that gets the right to port the Windows version under an agreement with Alibre.
This way Alibre doesn't have to spend time writing two different versions (Windows and Linux) of the same programme and can concentrate on building a great product.
This way Alibre doesn't have to spend time writing two different versions (Windows and Linux) of the same programme and can concentrate on building a great product.
Uncrushed6819
Member
I'll chime in with Alibre runs fine with pci passthrough of a graphics card.
On my desktop and laptop, I have two copies of windows installed.
I have my linux install, which I use looking-glass for the nvidia card which is passed through. This is great for running Alibre and works well, so I don't have to leave linux.
On the laptop, I use a flat file for the hard disk, on my desktop, I use a dedicated sata SSD.
I have a dedicated install of windows (for when I want to play a windows only game) and have Alibre installed there as well.
I now use an newertech guardian mini I have lying around with two SSDs for a local raid, and back up to cloud and local NAS. It is set to attach to the vm when it boots.
On a side note, I use SVN to manage my revisions right now and syncthing with one direction sync for the cloud backup and to send the files to my dedicated slicing computer.
I'd argue we are at the point for a home business starting up, Windows is a thing of the past. Most accounting software is online now. There are plenty of office tools available. When 10 becomes "dead", I'll just keep using it with no updates for CAD.
I don't _need_ a linux version, but I'd like one. I believe codeweavers will port your stuff to linux obviously at a charge.
As for WSL2, I was using it for a local dev install for a client, and one day...it just stopped working. It took me nearly 8 hours or so to get a working linux again.
On my desktop and laptop, I have two copies of windows installed.
I have my linux install, which I use looking-glass for the nvidia card which is passed through. This is great for running Alibre and works well, so I don't have to leave linux.
On the laptop, I use a flat file for the hard disk, on my desktop, I use a dedicated sata SSD.
I have a dedicated install of windows (for when I want to play a windows only game) and have Alibre installed there as well.
I now use an newertech guardian mini I have lying around with two SSDs for a local raid, and back up to cloud and local NAS. It is set to attach to the vm when it boots.
On a side note, I use SVN to manage my revisions right now and syncthing with one direction sync for the cloud backup and to send the files to my dedicated slicing computer.
I'd argue we are at the point for a home business starting up, Windows is a thing of the past. Most accounting software is online now. There are plenty of office tools available. When 10 becomes "dead", I'll just keep using it with no updates for CAD.
I don't _need_ a linux version, but I'd like one. I believe codeweavers will port your stuff to linux obviously at a charge.
As for WSL2, I was using it for a local dev install for a client, and one day...it just stopped working. It took me nearly 8 hours or so to get a working linux again.
