Alibre under Linux?

[Ex Machina]

Windows is most used OS in worklife, so I think sotware companies are not going to put effort to develop Linux versions. Linux is for hobbyists.

Quite the contrary, Linux is already usedmore by coding professionals because there are the toolsets available to do so. If decent CAD tools were available in Linux, you would see the Industrial Design professionals slowly migrate there too. That is my estimation of the status quo at least.

 

[Mika]

It is not only about the CAD tools, most of the ERP/PDM systems are also made for Windows only.

 

[Mika]

And for example…what about then when you need something else like Adobe Photoshop? You cannot have, it wont have Linux version. No, open source alternatives are not a good choice.

 

[Mika]

It would be really nice to use Linux, but I just cannot…never have been possible and I cannot see any possibilities in future either.

 

[Ex Machina]

I see what you're saying but,

Most CAD professionals don't also use photoshop, certainly not in larger companies where each department is specialized.

You can find ERP and PDM solutions in Linux. Maybe not all of them are available in Linux but there are options. And for smaller companies with simpler needs, you can just make it with LibreOffice Base, frankly.

I still think it's a wise business choice for Alibre to be available in Linux. And that would also mean that it would be really easy to port to MacOS at that point too. And there you do have more photoshop, erp, and pdm options

 

[Abhijit]

So I gave Linux another try again, last was 2012 afaik.
Was really sick of windows being windows.
I wanted to try if I could use Linux for my workstation PC, and get a Macbook as my main computer to remote into the workstation.

All my pipeline either has a Mac version or a Linux version, just Alibre that I'd need to find a hack for in Linux or Mac.

My experience was horrible.
Even Blender was glitching. Showed 1.6TB Vram. Windows flashing etc.
Substance for Steam has a linux build, didn't even start, just worked with Proton.
At that point I didn't even try Houdini or the rest of my pipeline.
Also none of my Audio Production softwares or plugins would work.
And I had a Linux pro sitting with me all this while trying to troubleshoot and apt getting missing dependencies.

My bottomline was, if the latest, Ubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, Rocky, PopOS can't support 4090 that's been out for more than an year, it's not a serious environment for creatives or makers.

Imo, a greater priority, if at all, should be MacOS support.
Linux is great for SysAdmins or Programmers for sure.

 

[Ex Machina]

Again, we need to look at the bigger picture here. There is a flip side to that that says that an HD7970 can run Alibre decently but is no longer supported in Windows. Or a GTX970. Or that the same system, assuming similar levels of polish on the drivers, will run a CAD software faster in a Linux environment than a Windows one.

And finally, the Huge, Gapping, Gigantic hole in the marketplace for a Parametric Modeller in Linux that can actually perform or even outperform the Windows competition. And I think Alibre can plug that hole...

 

[Uncrushed6819]

So I gave Linux another try again, last was 2012 afaik.
Was really sick of windows being windows.
I wanted to try if I could use Linux for my workstation PC, and get a Macbook as my main computer to remote into the workstation.

All my pipeline either has a Mac version or a Linux version, just Alibre that I'd need to find a hack for in Linux or Mac.

My experience was horrible.
Even Blender was glitching. Showed 1.6TB Vram. Windows flashing etc.
Substance for Steam has a linux build, didn't even start, just worked with Proton.
At that point I didn't even try Houdini or the rest of my pipeline.
Also none of my Audio Production softwares or plugins would work.
And I had a Linux pro sitting with me all this while trying to troubleshoot and apt getting missing dependencies.

My bottomline was, if the latest, Ubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, Rocky, PopOS can't support 4090 that's been out for more than an year, it's not a serious environment for creatives or makers.

Imo, a greater priority, if at all, should be MacOS support.
Linux is great for SysAdmins or Programmers for sure.

I assume you were trying these programs in wine?
Some applications will just never run, it's the way that it is.

Did you try out a demo of codeweaver's crossover? It is often more stable.
Did you check out lutris? They often have scripts that will make software that I couldn't get on my own to run.

I assume you mean your video card was flickering? Did you install the nvidia drivers (I'm not sure what a 4090 is, but I assume it's nvidia)?
Blender native build shouldn't have had issues.

On a personal note, I'd rather see a linux build than a mac build. When Apple starts deprecating hardware, it is a pain to keep stuff running, where as linux runs fine as a desktop for daily use on a 2012 i5.

 

[Mika]

So I gave Linux another try again, last was 2012 afaik.
Was really sick of windows being windows.
I wanted to try if I could use Linux for my workstation PC, and get a Macbook as my main computer to remote into the workstation.

All my pipeline either has a Mac version or a Linux version, just Alibre that I'd need to find a hack for in Linux or Mac.

My experience was horrible.
Even Blender was glitching. Showed 1.6TB Vram. Windows flashing etc.
Substance for Steam has a linux build, didn't even start, just worked with Proton.
At that point I didn't even try Houdini or the rest of my pipeline.
Also none of my Audio Production softwares or plugins would work.
And I had a Linux pro sitting with me all this while trying to troubleshoot and apt getting missing dependencies.

My bottomline was, if the latest, Ubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, Rocky, PopOS can't support 4090 that's been out for more than an year, it's not a serious environment for creatives or makers.

Imo, a greater priority, if at all, should be MacOS support.
Linux is great for SysAdmins or Programmers for sure.

THIS. Same experience every time with linux also. None of the apps working in Linux and always need to use some open source alternatives which ones looks like trip back to 80’s. For sure Linux is good for coders, because they need to use only text editors.

 

[Mika]

There is thousands of softwares which ones are only for Windows and peoples really want to use those. If linux developers want peoples to use more linux, then it is their responsibility to make ALL those softwares possible to install in linux. Not to wait that those thousands of software companies are starting to make linux versions of their softwares. Not gonna happen.

 

[JimCad]

I know nothing on this subject but hate Windows. I would gladly change if there was something else I could use.
Jim

 

[Abhijit]

I assume you were trying these programs in wine?
Some applications will just never run, it's the way that it is.

Did you try out a demo of codeweaver's crossover? It is often more stable.
Did you check out lutris? They often have scripts that will make software that I couldn't get on my own to run.

I assume you mean your video card was flickering? Did you install the nvidia drivers (I'm not sure what a 4090 is, but I assume it's nvidia)?
Blender native build shouldn't have had issues.

On a personal note, I'd rather see a linux build than a mac build. When Apple starts deprecating hardware, it is a pain to keep stuff running, where as linux runs fine as a desktop for daily use on a 2012 i5.

Hello! I appreciate your help!

All these softwares were installed with their Native Linux builds.
I tried Ubuntu LTS, Ubuntu Latest, Ubuntu Studio, PopOS and Rocky Linux (It's recommended by VFXReferencePlatform)
Blender's popup settings windows were flickering when resizing, but that was solved by using Wayland instead of X11.
But still Blender was showing random VRam readings in status bar when my 4090 has 24gb.
I also switched driver versions but no solution. Some say the kernel doesn't support my GPU.
Substance(Texturing) has native builds via Steam.
I installed Steam as .deb, flatpak, snap but nothing worked, and I must have read every possible post online.
Also my 3d connexion, Audio Interface, tablet isn't unsupported. Would give up all VST plugins for Sound Design.
So after 3 days, I just gave up.

I love Linux for the clean UX, and support FLOSS for the Freedom and spirit. I WANT to switch to Linux.
But I realized as much as I dislike windows UX (rumours are that theres gonna be AI stuff everywhere in Win12), being rigid and trying to make Linux work I would loose out on a lot in productivity by forever troubleshooting.
VFX houses use Linux, it's bloatfree and faster than windows, but they have full time IT and Tech Artists too, writing custom pipelines.
As a solo guy, it'd be a battle not worth fighting for me.
I'll be getting the newer M3 Macbook Pro as a laptop that I'd remote into my workstation which would be a render slave.

I can empathize with Alibre Team in this matter, that the Dev Hours that'll need to go into multi-os support and maintaining might not be as much stretching the dollar as the same time invested into added core capabilities.
But please, I am just sharing my experience, no way suggesting I am against anything Alibre fam is asking here in this thread.
I respect and value all perspectives.

 

[Ex Machina]

THIS. Same experience every time with linux also. None of the apps working in Linux and always need to use some open source alternatives which ones looks like trip back to 80’s. For sure Linux is good for coders, because they need to use only text editors.

My experience, I have to say, is the opposite. When my desktop failed I got an ancient laptop with an i3-330m and a Nvidia Mx330, got it running Ubuntu, and got 2 jobs out the door with FreeCAD!!! FreeCAD!!! Sure, it was reverse engineering simple failed parts. But they where jobs! Imagine if I had Alibre!!!

I could rule the waves! Forget the waves... The World! Forget the world...(Thanos Vibes)... The Universe ! ! ! (lol, bad joke)

 

[simonb65]

According to global statistics the Desktop Operating System Market Share Worldwide in 2023 is ...

Windows ... 68.88%
OS X ... 20.31%
Chrome OS ... 4.09%
Other ... 3.79%
Linux ... 2.92%
FreeBSD ... 0.01%

Tablet Operating System Market Share Worldwide in 2023 is ...

iOS ... 54.33%
Android ... 45.46%
Linux ... 0.13%
Unknown ... 0.04%
Blackberry ... 0.02%
Windows ... 0.02%

Mobile Operating System Market Share Worldwide in 2023 is ...

Android ... 69.64%
iOS ... 29.67%
Samsung ... 0.37%
Unknown ... 0.14%
KaiOS... 0.11%
Windows ... 0.02%

Just for comparison ... the Server Share in 2023 is ...

Linux ... 15.15%
Oracle Linux ... 15.01%
Apple iOS ... 10.99%
Unix ... 6.02%
Debian ... 5.81%
Others ... 47.03%

You may find that programmers and tech use Linux because its an open platform which natively supports web hosting platforms like Apache, etc. It tends to be used headless, mostly in server hosting applications, for it's raw performance. Most computer users are generally computer illiterate or have minimal skills, which is why they adopt Windows. Most businesses use Windows because it's easier to deploy and manage. Most users that use OS X tend to be people that just want an OS to work out of the box with little or no configuration. The OS X market has ha the largest share of Video editors, Graphic artists and Music Producers.

Whilst Linux is on the slow ascent in terms of users, it uptake for desktop use is a fraction of all Linus users. This is why developers do not actively pursue porting their products to run on Linux ... unless it's a background service!

I suspect the majority of Alibre users are not programmers or techies (Would be an interesting statistic from Alibre!), but they are predominantly home users on Windows or work in businesses that have Windows. Just from the comments on this forum, there aren't many who actually write Scripts, there aren't many trying to run Alibre on other platforms under Wine, etc.

@Ex Machina , like myself and a few others on here, getting operating systems other than windows installed on an old (or new) PC is not something the majority of computer users do, know how to do or even know about. You need to remember, Alibre is a user based application for regular CAD designers, not a development tool. Most that use Linux have a background in programming or developing applications, not using them!

I guess it doesn't matter what our individual OS preferences are, application developers need to follow the market share to maximise customers and revenue!

For me the stats clearly say a Windows and OS X Application with an iOS and Android Viewer! ... and that's exactly what my company would develop if it had an application similar to Alibre.

 

[Ex Machina]

...

@Ex Machina , like myself and a few others on here, getting operating systems other than windows installed on an old (or new) PC is not something the majority of computer users do, know how to do or even know about. You need to remember, Alibre is a user based application for regular CAD designers, not a development tool. Most that use Linux have a background in programming or developing applications, not using them!

...

For me the stats clearly say a Windows and OS X Application with an iOS and Android Viewer! ... and that's exactly what my company would develop if it had an application similar to Alibre.

First of all, I completely agree about Alibre needing to just work without being fiddled with. But you can do that in Linux. Plonk Ubuntu onto a system, download Alibre from their software manager and you're off to the races. Plus, Ubuntu's update procedure is easier to work with and understand than Windows Update.

I cannot disagree that Alibre would need to be a "Plug-and-Play" affair just like it is in Windows. But the company could always say "We recommend X or Y distro at that version number for optimal operation" and leave the rest to the user, if he so decides.

Finally, I completely agree with you that an OS X and a Mobile Viewer would be absolute Wins!!! But if you do build the OS X app, Linux is so close you can actually taste it, lol. And Linux has a scarier rep than it deserves, so only those who know what they're doing would go there. Plus, it's a complete hole in the Market. And Linux also has KiCAD, and that would make a hell of a combo, I'm telling you...

OS X decent CAD is also a gaping hole (Only Fusion360 does it and they had a terrible time getting it compatible with Rosetta), so I am confident Alibre would overtake it for CAD only users, pretty quickly...

P.S. Another merit to developing an OS X version is that Alibre would have to deal with working on ARM based CPUs. They're not "here" yet but they are coming and it would be a good head start.

 

[simonb65]

And Linux also has KiCAD

Windows has KiCAD !

The way developers work is that they develop for the platform that is native to them. If it's written for Windows, it's not normally portable because it's generally (slowly moving away from this!) written using native Windows libraries. That doesn't port to Linux. However Linux written applications generally are written using a platform independent library and utilise things like QT for the UI (which is portable). Having written for Linux, using the native dev tools (which tend to be raw low level tools like make, git, etc rather than an Integrated Development Environment), they port very easily to Windows and if you develop a lInux application (which most tend to be open source!), then releasing that to Windows users gain a massive user base ... sadly, the same can't be said going the other way, which is another reason why it's not commonplace.

I would be interested to hear the views of a non-technical user on the subject of OS choice!

My customers only ever specify Windows as the target platform for supporting applications and utilities, unless it's a backend solution and that's never Windows, that's always php (running on a Linux or Unix based Apache server), SQL (MySql or Maria) and FTP services on a Linux host.

 

[Uncrushed6819]

Good morning all.

Personally, I've been using Linux a really long time. I've been a professional software developer on linux for nearly the same amount of time. I love linux. I scream linux at babies in the super market. Right in their little faces.

That said, I think the days of complex linux are long gone and have been since circa 2010ish. My mom went back to college around then, and finished an AA using ubuntu because I didn't have time to constantly be fixing a windows computer. She did her papers in open office. She did all her internet things in firefox. She used either thunderbid or evolution (I'm can't remember) for her email.

I don't think that getting every windows application to run on linux is feasible. It's a compromise there, you find something new, or you run a VM. I've posted before about the gpu passthrough etc. I can play games just fine that way. Alibre works great too. And I never optimized the vm with core pinning and all the fun stuff you can do. Granted, it is a little bit of work. AFAIK, you can emulate TPM as well.

Porting to OSX would most likely be the same amount of work to port to linux, if it was written in C#, imo. Ideally, an appimage would be great and should run for a really long time. I've also had success running extremely old builds of software in dockers.

While I like apple hardware, it always seems when something is "TOO GOOD", they discontinue it. The entry level mac pro is currently $7k starting point. Entry level mac studio is $2k. You can customize a system 76 (who develop's pop_os) system starting at like $900 and you can chuck your own stuff in it over time.

I used mac os X from 10.6 -> 10.12, on an imac and a 2013 macbook air (which still gets 5-6 hours of battery!). The forced OS updates to use newer versions of software or being forced to stay behind because of a company going out of business sucked.

Just my thoughts no one asked to hear >

Abhijit,​

Your experience is really strange to me other than Wayland / X11, which is annoying at the moment, I'll admit. If you have a chance, you might try OpenSuSE tumbleweed, I believe that is a rolling distro and more likely to have newer packages installed. You should be able to use SNAPS as well.

 

[dwc]

I can corroborate @Abhijit's experience with Linux.
I tried going to Linux twice with about 5 years in between. The last time about 10 years ago.
I could always get a system up and running OK.
What was more work was trying to keep things running. One package was an update -> need to update OS and/or libraries -> other packages no longer work. It is an endless cycle. Both times I tried, at some point I found that I was spending more time keeping Linux running than I was getting work done.
However painful it was to reinstall Windows, it always worked immediately.
Maybe things have changed during the years, but I see computers as tools.
I try to buy the right tool for the job that gets results right away.
If I have to file here and screw in additions there to get the tool to work, I don't want it.
There are lots of things in Windows that I don't like, but I get the work done without wasting any time thinking about what I need to do to keep my OS happy.

 

[Uncrushed6819]

Appimages take most of that pain away, as do snaps.

If you can afford it and want to dabble in linux, you can buy hp g3 sff desktops without ssds on ebay for $70 shipped. 128GB ssd is $10 or so on amazon. These run modern linux just fine.

If you really like windows UI, there are some distros like https://zorin.com/os/ that have themes and feels similar to the varying versions of windows and osx.

Snaps, appimages, flatpaks make life easier, usually. Ive tried running some wine flatpaks / snaps and had no success there.

The pay version of zorin is extra themes.

XFCE is a similar feel to windows as well.

Do some dabbling and see if it works better for you now.

I will sing linux from the mountain tops. Long gone are the days of recompiling kernel over and over to get the sound card to work.

My daughter heard me say it so many times when she was a little bub that she’d tell people to “put linux on it”.

I’ll be running 10 in a vm until Alibre no longer supports 10 and it fails to load.

This all said, I’ve found the debloating scripts for windows to be nice and make it tolerable for me.

 

[dwc]

If you can afford it and want to dabble in linux,

Do some dabbling and see if it works better for you now.

That's it.
That is exactly why Linux doesn't work for so many people.
I have no time for dabbling,
I need a tool that works.

If your interest is in building a great OS and maintaining it, run to Linux.
If that is not your main reason for having a computer, IMHO, you need to avoid Linux.

That said I have spun up a Ubuntu headless server on an ARM processor for Jamulus during covid that ran fine.