FreeCAD 1.0: The Most Important Linux Release of 2024

It may not be a Web Browser, Office Suite, or Game... but great CAD was needed for Linux.
More from The Lunduke Journal: lunduke.com/

[@Liberty4Ever]

I'm an engineer. I've been using Linux and open source software exclusively for 26 years. My entire engineering tool chain from design concept to CNC machining is open source. I've had to make some compromises and it hasn't always been easy, but it's *always* been worth it. FreeCAD is awesome. Huge appreciation to the FreeCAD dev team.

[@iliketoast-q9b]

Do you use FreeCAD professionally or just for your hobby projects? Been using Fusion mostly and just can't justify using FreeCAD, as much as I want to like it. It's still not nearly as productive and robust as proprietary CAD-software, though the features are almost there for smaller projects. I often have to generate organic shapes and surfaces with high precision and control and I hate to say it, but FreeCAD still sucks for that.

[@Moronicsmurf]

What do you run for CAM??

[@Liberty4Ever]

@@Moronicsmurf - I admittedly cheat on CAM. Most of the parts I CNC machine are fairly simple and I prefer to write the G code manually for those. More complex parts such as hole patterns, I might use PyCAM. I've made some surprisingly complex parts, writing the G code manually, and I like having full control of the G code generation. When the G code is dialed in on a part, I can array it to make hundreds of little nylon parts on a 24"X48" sheet of plastic on a CNC router, or I can turn little titanium parts on a lathe. Most of our products are now 3D printed, so PrusaSlicer is the CAM.

[@Liberty4Ever]

@@iliketoast-q9b - I use FreeCAD professionally, in the sense that I use it for a business, but it's a very small business. I'm the only engineer, so most people would probably consider that as "mostly hobby", even though it's my business. Honestly, most people would still not consider FreeCAD to be ready for prime time. A friend owns a business with approximately 50 employees, most of them engineers. They use SolidWorks. FreeCAD does everything I need and more. It's been stable for the last couple of years. With the 1.0 release, I'm hopeful it'll get better much faster. It's been a long time coming but it feels like the development is past the knee in the curve and momentum is building quickly. I expect FreeCAD to be in a lot more businesses in a couple of years. The bonus of not needing a Windows machine is huge, in my opinion.

[@Moronicsmurf]

@@Liberty4Ever ah i had my suspicion, no shade.. its why i still use fusion for my mills and lathes. :/ (dont wanna)

[@soi8739]

Can only hope, KiCAD already changed the playing field for EDA tools. Stuff like push-and-shove routers were sold as premium features for thousands of dollars in subscription fees 10 years ago. Then CERN developers added it to KiCAD for free.. It really changed the game for hobbyists and smaller companies.

[@mukiex4413]

I literally just used that to mod a PCB and change the end connector. It's kinda wild that it's free.

[@Artificial_Incompetence_Bot]

Yeah it's we live in amazing times, back when I was a student a CAD program like FreeCAD in it's current state could cost around $100k for a standard license, one computer. That would be much more today with inflation. I think a standard license of Siemens NX cost around $50k today (due to competition). CAD has always been protected and I see my self as lucky to have had the chance to test most CAD programs during my student years. FreeCAD is extremely powerful, but just keep in mind that these type of programs are mainly made for engineers and for mass production. It's natural that it takes a while to grasp all concepts, and looking into any formal CAD education through open course ware is helpful. FreeCAD have some benefits I think most have overlooked too, when FreeCAD 1.0 launches it also becomes the best Neutral Format in existence (overtaking step). Considering how much construction geometry and data it can store. A format that can be opened and edited on any platform on any place, ISS or middle of the Ocean. It require no internet connection or subscriptions. Commercial CAD should be worried.

[@muhdiversity7409]

The mad lads finally did it. In earlier versions it was so easy to get myself into a corner with lots of errors that I could never resolve. Being told to try the latest got old real quick. I'll give this version another try.

[@DS-pk4eh]

Let us know (after a week maybe) how do you find it. Thanks

[@James2210]

Arch Linux had 8 patches for this before the 1.0rc1 release. Crazy.

[@ZappyOh]

Open Source is a quality in itself. For 3D-printing and CNC-cutting, I tested FreeCAD for a while, but had to drop it, and go the Blender route. I'm very willing to test again :)

[@kneekoo]

I'm curious how useful will it be for you at this point in time. :) Maybe you can leave a follow-up comment.

[@mgord9518]

You using the CAD extensions? I've been getting into 3D printing so I should probably learn them both to some degree but I've been trying to decide what to mess with first

[@matthiasmartin1975]

I used Blender for 3d printing some years ago because FreeCAD thwarted my attempts to get proficient with it, whereas I knew Blender since about 1999. But in recent years, I finally broke though and this recent 1.0 RC1 release is so polished that it is just fun to build stuff with it. Now I only to go Blender if it is something really organic that lends itself to low poly modeling plus modifiers.

[@wisnoskij]

MY understanding is the Blender is not designed for precise measurements like that. Did that actually work well for you?

[@DavidCoutinhoCG]

@@wisnoskij there is a tool called CAD Sketcher (a blender extension), which is really good, or so i heard, you can do CAD really well in blender, but i don't know about comparing it with a specialized tool like FreeCAD, so only testing we will know for sure.

[@auslanderalex5464]

I'm in the "want to use Linux for a daily driver but need CAD for work" group, so this is amazing news. I tried FreeCAD a while back and it was unfortunately unusable at the time. Here's hoping that's changed

[@JacksonNick-j6i]

Finally. A Lunduke video without any drama or screaming "that's crazy!!!" In response of every event imaginable. Just calm reporting.

[@TrevorSullivan]

The amount of useful open source software these days is incredible

[@FelipeFujimori]

This is something I love to see, when I was still in university (mechanical engineering) I had a friend that didn’t wanted to use Windows no matter what, he used Octave instead of MatLab with no problem, but when it came to 3D CAD, he has to work like ten times harder than everyone else to make it work on FreeCAD. Since then it has been getting better and better.

[@Mrtickleberries]

That has been my experience going from fusion 360 to free cad it takes longer to do most things and its far more fragile when making adjustments its like going from a word processor to a typewriter.

[@FutsuoInui]

OMG! I've been waiting for this for years, I'm so excited!

[@adrianscarlett]

Parametric CAD is the one thing missing from linux for me.

[@OktoPutsch]

Same, same. The only reason why I left Linux on my desktop despite 25y long of use everywhere. Modern CAD softwares are decades ahead.

[@mytech6779]

The way I have always seen the situation is the CADD software dictates the OS, the OS doesn't dictate the CADD software. If Autodesk switched development to Linux or MacOS then every autocad user would switch their OS without hesitation. (Same for CATIA, Solidworks, etc; the whole workshop will be molded around the CADD software.)

[@OktoPutsch]

Longtime ago, Catia was available for Unices, same with Siemens NX not so long ago, if only did they keep it developped and switched to a better widget library like Qt, instead of this messy TK thing...

[@Blenzo480]

Free cad is great. Some say the workflow is weird and clunky, but it was the first GUI cad program i used. I didn't have much trouble learning it with nothing to compare it to other than OpenSCAD. I actually had more trouble learning fusion 360 because i was used to free cad. I still prefer OpenSCAD and now CADQuery(but i hate python) over gui cad programs.

[@Blenzo480]

Free cad has a openscad workbench that can export .step files. Pretty cool when it works.

[@matthewnirenberg]

Most people just don't understand the workflow because they never learnt CATIA. If you know CATIA, its the exact same workflow, just with a drop-down workbench selector instead of a workbench menu.

[@caiomazzaferroadami]

We're getting toponaming issue solved in an official release before GTA 6.

[@KiteTurbine]

I'm that engineer Rhino grasshopper

[@hypocritical7379]

sorry but onshape has support for most OSes (it is on a web browser) but freecad has almost everything you need

[@garrettrinquest1605]

I've tried it before. The workflow of FreeCAD is not at all intuitive like it is with most CAD programs

[@OktoPutsch]

FreeCAD UI is a pure 90's vision of CAD software. Ergonomic from hell.

[@makerbotplanet]

I want to believe

[@JohnDoe-qg6hm]

I want Free CAD to run on R Pi 3B + or Perhaps 4B but please OPTIMIZE it to run on low power hardware !

[@matthewnirenberg]

It never will. That's like trying to render an animated movie on a phone in 1990. Pi's aren't made for heavy GPU & Compute workloads.

[@evdb9255]

OnShape?

[@Artificial_Incompetence_Bot]

OnShape (also works on Linux), Fusion 360 and Solid Edge are great programs who all offers a free limited version for hobbyists. How ever if you want to take your designs further you will have to get on a payed plan or a limited start up license. Though it might be easier for hobbyists to get started with those three with their more intuitive userinterface and and forgiving tools/features. They might also let you get away with less than ideal practices creating models prone to break further down the line. Also keep in mind that they can revoke their free versions at any point and lock you out of your own designs. The time you invest in learning FreeCAD will pay off even if you decide to switch CAD package in the future. If you build unbreakable parts in FreeCAD you will also be able to build the same type of robust parts in any other CAD package, due to good CAD practices.

[@evdb9255]

@@Artificial_Incompetence_Bot true I am also camp freecad.

[@Ughmahedhurtz]

@@Artificial_Incompetence_Bot _Also keep in mind that they can revoke their free versions at any point and lock you out of your own designs._

[@gendragongfly]

FreeCAD is great as a feature rich opensource CAD package, which is amazing because there aren't many free CAD software packages. But it has a workflow that feels very different from most CAD packages, what it really needs is number of interface and accessibility updates. Regardless, I'm amazed and very happy with how feature rich FreeCAD has become.

[@detaart]

I just cannot get used to freecad's workflow. It's weird and kludgy. The whole workbench thing, the way the body/parts tree works, the odd renaming of things like extruding, etc etc. I am unable to gel with it to such an extreme degree that using solvespace for a while felt like a breath of fresh air after freecad ... i mean ... that's saying something lol.

[@Artificial_Incompetence_Bot]

@@detaart My tip is stay in the "part design" workbench for now. That one is most similar to other CAD programs workbench named similar to Solid/Parametric. Just have to get used to feature names like "pad" instead of extrude. Features can also only be applied on sketches containing manifold closed curves. Each "body" can only contain one manifold solid body.

[@Arcidi225]

So basically early blender situation? I hope it's blender situation, not gimp situation though xD

[@jkr9594]

Yea. Its UI is literally unusable, and it has some overall extremely annoying "quirks" that will have to be removed before FC can become mainstream.

[@julianbinder2371]

there's ondsel, it's basically a UI wrapper around FreeCAD

[@atomicsmith]

Imagine if all the engineers, manufacturers and architects that pay for CAD licenses put 10% of that money to support open source CAD… I think we would have viable options in just a few years.

[@oddlytimbotwillison6296]

If every college/university gave the book-fees of just one of their engineering/design students to open source it would fund everything.

[@MisterMakerNL]

So true.

[@trejohnson7677]

@@oddlytimbotwillison6296lol so go work 2 week at a temp job moving boxes and revolutionize cad.

[@minecraftfirefighter]

5% would probaly already be enough if you consider solidworks license cost over like 50.000 a year

[@matthiasmartin1975]

Absolutely correct - this is a huge deal. This is now as respectable for the engineering field as Blender has been for the artistic field. .

[@lfmsimoes1]

I absolutely agree. Fingers crossed.

[@Artificial_Incompetence_Bot]

Totally agree! Great time to be alive!

[@iliketoast-q9b]

No it isn't, sorry. Blender has been used by professional artists for a while now and for some pretty big name projects too. FreeCAD is lightyears away from that. Engineers might use it for hobby projects, but I've yet to see even a single company use FreeCAD professionaly or anyone using FreeCAD for anything above ambitious hobby projects.

[@matthiasmartin1975]

@@iliketoast-q9b Yes, upon further reflection... FreeCAD is only at the beginnning of its rise. Blender was there 20 years ago.

[@Artificial_Incompetence_Bot]

@@iliketoast-q9b FreeCAD 1.0 hasn't launcher yet, it's still a Release Candidate. I think we'll see commercial adoption as soon as a stable 1.0 is out, considering the tools in large is there already in version 0.21.2 Beta. The 0.21.2 was missing a common Assembly workbench. Not knowing if your Assembly models will break in future releases was quite the limitation. But 1.0 will now ship with an new Assembly workbench that can be tried out in 1.0 RC. I don't expect Sony will hop over from NX to FreeCAD but smaller companies and start-ups might just as well start with FreeCAD. Larger adoption will probably not happen before it's feasible to find engineers trained in FreeCAD. So Universities will need to teach it, just like you can find courses using Blender on many technical universities today.

[@DavidConnerCodeaholic]

The topological naming problem merge is HUGE for FreeCAD. Also, in FreeCAD, since all your UI & UX interactions are recorded & printed as a Python script, it becomes very easy to create applets based on your GUI actions.

[@Artificial_Incompetence_Bot]

yes that's a super powerful feature in FreeCAD and it's only going to get stronger with AI. I managed to create a few useful macros from just watching the python console while I work and taking help from Chat GPT. So completely without prior Python or programming education (so if I can anyone can). If you add exterior surface modeling in Blender and export with the "export to iges" (exports NURBS) plug-in. You can pretty much do anything a commercial CAD package can. I had formal CAD education though so I never saw the TNP as a problem, it's good CAD praxis to sketch on datum planes and move the datum planes with features like "pad.length" for example. But it'll definitely be helpful for the tinkerers. I can see how its more intuitive for them to sketch on surfaces, though I still wouldn't recommend it.

[@DavidConnerCodeaholic]

@@Artificial_Incompetence_Bot yes but if you don’t know what the design should look like in the end, you’re more likely to run into it. For novice users, it would be a frustrating and confusing glitch to run into, especially since it impacts how you resequence transformations (like extrusions, etc). What do you mean by using datum planes? Do you mean like starting with construction lines, then adding plane objects, then leading towards a more advanced GD&T approach? Like before making many sketches? Not all curves have a great parameterization. This is one of the problems with NURBS surfaces, which are more like icing on cake. NURBS is so easy if you can use programming, but few other features can depend on their surface (if any)

[@DavidConnerCodeaholic]

NURBS uses B-Splines, so it’s an analytic method (i.e., it is very helpful when you need an approximate or “best” solution) “Bessie you best get your functions of the second kind up in hya”

[@DavidConnerCodeaholic]

Also, it is very likely that you’ll be told “NURBS can’t have holes!”, but alas it is truly thine CAD software which canst resolve the “Pants theorem” for thine-st requisite curves. In other words, NURBS on a surface with one hole can be split into two NURBS problems. NURBS for volumes with voids is another matter entirely - still possible, but it’s clearly someone else’s problem (not mine)

[@DavidConnerCodeaholic]

I only continue to write, hoping to bamboozle this Bot’s “Pravda” or praxis or wut-have-you?

[@raul0ca]

At this moment several non-profits, NGOs and reddit groups are getting ready to assume control of the project

[@rezah336]

if people allow themselves to be infiltrated then it is their own fault, the tactic is open

[@CrucialFlowResearch]

Probably competitor companies trying to ruin the free project

[@henrikholst7490]

First step a Code of Conduct and a Community Guidelines. And moderators. What else. Oh a steering committee! 😅

[@MousepadFirmware]

Fork it

[@John-wd5cb]

Oops! In before George Soros take over!

[@ALinuxEnthusiast]

FreeCAD 1.0 is a great milestone, but it's still far from viability in a professional setting. How do I know? CAD software is one thing keeping me from going Linux only, and I use just use Rhinoceros as a freelancing side job, not even an actual parametric CAD or my actual job. Imho, GIMP 3.0, which we're going to hear about in the next few weeks, a couple months in the absolute worst case, is going to be the bigger release of the two: it's far closer to viability, and one of its professional niches are youtubers, and that's going to translate in more of them trying Linux sticking to it, thus better advertising.

[@niggacockball7995]

no release of GIMP can ever considered "big" until they fix the near unuseable UI

[@emperorpalpatine6080]

can you give examplesof what's missing in linux CAD software ?

[@ALinuxEnthusiast]

@@emperorpalpatine6080 Multiple pieces in a single sketch is sure one. But even more than missing features, FreeCAD makes GIMP look like a UX/UI masterpiece, and everyone says GIMP's UI is terrible (which it's actually not, except for a few things, GIMP is really just missing basic features): the various editing modes are hidden behind an anassuming dropdown menu, every time you try to do something the log drawns you in error massages that mean something to you only if you made the program, and really everything is clunky and unintuitive. There's also that DWG support is a must if you're cooperating with others, since everyone uses AutoCAD, and FreeCAD only does it via external programs (LibreDWG and Oda File Converter), and neither of them is good.

[@cj09beira]

@@emperorpalpatine6080 in freecad, 1.0 solves one of its biggest problems, but its still and will always be a really slow program because its python based. the other day i needed to make a 3d model of a QFN-80 package, nothing hard, quite simple stuff, the sketch at a point was taking 5 mins to respond to inputs, it took me hours to sketch the part because of this, hopefully i dont have to explain that this isn't acceptable performance

[@Artificial_Incompetence_Bot]

@@cj09beira the Python calls a feature programmed in C++. So you can turn on the Python Console in FreeCAD to see what Python command will call upon the feature you used, that way you can easily create your own macros using Python. I'm no programmer so don't quote me on how this works but it's pretty common in CAD to use Python as a console language. Did you check if you ran out of RAM? Do you have previous CAD knowledge? It's normal that it takes time to update the geometry ones you exit the sketch, but did changes inside the sketch take 5 min? Seem's like a rather big sketch for a CAD program that only does features on a singe manifold sketch...? I'm curious because I haven't run into this yet, but I never had a problem with the Topological Naming Problem either, because I use Datum planes and expressions.

[@giomjava]

Hear hear! As a hobbyist, I appreciate the availability of Freecad, I'll learn it. There is a slope, but nothing worth anything is easy.

[@Artificial_Incompetence_Bot]

Good to see, love your attitude! I had formal CAD education and I can tell you it's well worth learning FreeCAD, it's extremely powerful (it was way beyond my expectations). FreeCAD might be tricky to wrap your head around in the beginning but it'll force you to use good CAD practices. After you've learned FreeCAD you can easily migrate your skills to any another CAD package, or keep using it and even scale up to a small company if you want. I'd recommend to try stay in the "part design" workbench as much as possible to begin with. Recreating from 2D drawings make great exercises, see if you can find some that contains information of the part volume so you can compare your results. And get a cheap 3D printer! Nothing more rewarding than actually being able to hold your creations!

[@giomjava]

@@Artificial_Incompetence_Bot thanks for the encouragement!! I have Ender 3 S1 Pro and I've already designed and printed a headphone hook for my cubical at work ❤️ i got to use a few considerations I hqve from 3d printing. What a rewarding experience indeed!

[@1pcfred]

I learned Freecad. Then when I went to export my project I learned Freecad can't export in standard inches. When you use Freecad it'll act like you're using inches but it can't output in inches. So that makes Freecad useless to me. From what I understand it is a fundamental shortcoming with the basic framework of the program and is completely unfixable without abandoning everything and starting over. The lead dev has always been completely against supporting Standard since day one. So he likely did it intentionally. Never trust a kraut.

[@jclosed2516]

@@1pcfred In this part of the world we use metric, so I guess the software is designed around it. I never use those inches (apart from maybe monitor sizes), so I did not had the problems you had. Are you sure you did nor looked over some settings?

[@1pcfred]

@@jclosed2516 yeah I'm sure it doesn't work. I'm fairly confident it'll never work too. The lack of support is intentional on the part of the developers. They don't want it to work. So they designed the software so it'll never support Standard. It's a spite move and I can appreciate that.

[@konkitoman]

FreeCad 1.0rc1 vs 0.21.2 is 400% better for me! Now it is actually usable!

[@hypocritical7379]

completely agree

[@streamcyper]

I have been thinking of getting into 3d modeling for printing. But not having a good solution to do it on my Linux machine basically made this a non-starter. I will begrudgingly use Windows on my work machine, but I refuse to have it installed on my own personal machines. So thanks FreeCAD for making it a viable option, and thanks Lunduke for letting me know about it!

[@iliketoast-q9b]

It's still FreeCAD, so clunky to use and other CAD offerings are still way easier to get into and more productive once you're up to speed on CAD-modelling. Onshape can be used with Linux btw and it's free for hobbyists.

[@zebedie2]

While it's not fully released just yet (you still need to use the weekly builds) it's fixed a lot of stuff. Topo naming problem fixed or at least massively better, construction lines are now dotted lines, automatic removal of redundant constraints, the dimensioning tool is now automatic like solidworks, simulation for CAM (at least in 3 axis, but not 4 just yet), CAM with 3d Surface support (slow but works needs an experimental flag setting), CAM for 4th rotary axis (same as surface). Haven't tested assembly3 with it yet (which is the solidworks type of assemblies) but that will hopefully be fixed in relation to the topo naming. Has a really good solidworks easy to use feel to it.

[@rainmannoodles]

Calling the TNP fixes complete is… optimistic. It’s a start I guess.

[@zebedie2]

@@rainmannoodles I'm guessing there are situations where it can occur, but so far I've not been able to trigger it myself (before I could quite easily). I would also say another one thats probably overlooked is the auto removal of redundant constraints with a complicated sketch which helps a lot to avoid over constrained sketches

[@jasontti]

Have used latest weeklies and very exited about freecad hitting stable 1.0. Even if it doesn't hit as hard as the big design softwares, but it is really good option for us that can't use those, or doesn't want to.

[@blu3_enjoy]

I use freecad everyday, I love it. Is 1.0 due this year though?

[@joes144]

I suspect we'll see it by the end of October.

[@jclosed2516]

@@joes144 That's my guess too. But we will see...

[@oddlytimbotwillison6296]

I work at a makerspace where the entire lab is based on open-source. All the computers are linux, and FreeCAD is used for design/production for Laser, 3D Print, and CNC mill. We teach courses that are about 18 hours (over six weeks). I recently tried out the RC1 version with a group of students, and it mostly went well. The one major problem we hit is the "overlay" option in the UI. I recommend disabling that in the preferences immediately. Students were losing track of panels, getting extremely frustrated. It is a feature intended to make the Model and Task panels hide away when not in use, but it just does not work well. Other than that - pretty smooth sailing!

[@hypocritical7379]

make sure everything gets updated to 1.0! 0.21.1 is unusable with this update, i refuse to go back.

[@sirrodneyffing1]

Thanks for the tip. I hit exactly the same problem.

[@Mrtickleberries]

I went from fusion 360 to free cad for 3D printing. I didn't mind putting in the work to learn it, but I find the unpredictability when making adjustments extremely frustrating. Making one adjustment can make the whole model fall apart like a house of cards and while that's true of most 3D cad software freecad makes it very difficult to work out what it doesn't like. It's probably ok if you started with Freecad but I find Freecad tedious, frustrating and very unforgiving of changes

[@sirrodneyffing1]

@@Mrtickleberries Thanks for you honest opinion. I find open source software is often regarded with a kind of cult status by it's supporters, which sometimes prevents open constructive and valuable criticism.

[@Mrtickleberries]

@@sirrodneyffing1 Yup if you want a software to destroy your joy in 3d modeling FreeCad is the software for you. When you 3d print something you've designed in fusion and realise you need to change a parameter it's 2 mins adjustment and print again. With FreeCad better make sure you have an eight sided dice to hand when you make the change and accept four of the sides say randomly scramble .

[@xgamer]

I often use 0.21.2 It's very hard and not intuitive. after numerous youtube tutorials I kind of can do what I want but not easily.

[@Marty234]

Right! I eventually decided that spending money & time setting up a windows VM was unfortunately the better option

[@mgord9518]

​@@Marty234Spending money setting up a VM?

[@Marty234]

@mgord9518 ya I have to buy a 2nd GPU to do GPU pass through, it's also not a simple thing to do. Just running a normal VM gets horrible performance out of F360 (and pretty much everything else : )

[@martinfurlanic]

At work I'm sadly bind to some renowned proprietary software, but I'm eager and really looking forward to implement the FreeCad in my worklflow as much as I can, as I'm already doing from approximately version 0.19. Keep the good work FreeCad team!!!!!!

[@cj09beira]

This is an improvement but sorry a python based program is NOT fast enough. just the other day i tried to build something slightly more complex and the UI was taking 5mins to respond, this is not acceptable performance.

[@rezah336]

isnt it c++? just the GUI is python

[@BeefIngot]

That sounds like something poorly coded as opposed to the language. UI should never be locked up.

[@ZoneofA]

Cant wait top try it out. Previously I attempted to use FreeCAD but it was horrendously buggy, also user interface was ... hard to use. I hope for great improvement in both areas.

[@Marty234]

The user interface was still horrendous as of 2 weeks ago unfortunately. The glitches were annoying but not as bad as I had heard so I think they have made progress on that. I really hope they redesign the user interface eventually, I would love for it to be a viable alternative to Fusion 360 & the like.

[@Artificial_Incompetence_Bot]

@@Marty234 The workbenches are developed by different teams, so there might be a slight lack of naming/user interface convention. But let me explain a method I think you will have more success with, imagine that "part-design" is your main workbench. It's probably called Solids/Parametric in other CAD programs, and "part"-workbench is more for deep level geometry work like stitching surfaces together into solids, and fixing bad geometry (often called Surface in other packages). If you want to create unbreakable parametric models, name your dimensional constraints and then link to them using expressions (the "e" in the parameter field") Example: instead of entering a number in your dimensional length you can enter "=" followed by "Sketch001.Constraints.YourDimensionsName". Sketch on Datum-planes instead of surfaces, and move them in place by linking their translation in an axis, again as an expression "=" and "Pad.Length".

[@Mrtickleberries]

Yeah I gave up on Freecad it was very frustrating to build something and the parametrics were a nightmare so many times I'd make a parameter change and your design would fall apart and reversing said change often did not reverse the breakage.

[@jay-j6l]

freecad is complete nerd oriented, the work flow is unintuitive and is painful. I personally hate freecad, it's a time waster. I want to be productive when CADing. a lot of people have 3D printers, they need a good free CAD software, but freecad is not it. However I will take a look at it again and hopefully it's much more stable and doesn't keep crashing or give confusing errors. UPDATE: I gave FreeCAD another go after maybe 2 years? it's gotten better and doesn't crash every few operations. I actually going to switch over to using it more. TIP start off in "Part Design" workbench, it will make your life a lot easier to design.

[@Artificial_Incompetence_Bot]

I'm sorry you find it too taxing to learn, but I do understand. CAD programs are great for engineers if you want to take one of your designs into mass production. But every tinker might not start out with those needs, I think it might be more suiting and rewarding for you to learn another type of program more used in the Prototyping stage, for Product designers. I would recommend Blender, it's also free and open source. You can use a technique called subdivision modeling in it. Subtract and add shapes and carve out your creation, it's preferred by artists and product designers. It will also take a while to learn, but it can create 3D shapes very fast, more like 3D sketching.

[@jay-j6l]

@@Artificial_Incompetence_Bot I understand how CAD works. I was using DesignSpark for a while and then switched over to using OnShape. Blender is not suited for CAD but many use it for that, I find blender to be pailful to use. I did take another look at FreeCAD and I have to say I am very pleased with it. It's not crashing or spitting confusing errors like it use to. I took some time to re-learn the basics of FreeCad and I can see myself using it more and more. It still have its ugly warts and quirks, but it's improved quite a bit since I last gave it a try, maybe 2 years back. Thanks for your input. I'm going to switch to using FreeCAD, so I can keep my design on my own PC.

[@1pcfred]

My CNC machine sits and gathers dust today because Freecad can't export anything in inches. While you're working with Freecad it can appear to be using inches but it is not. At least that's how it was when I used it. The lead dev of Freecad has zero interest in ever fixing that and the contributors I don't think are in any position to fix it either.

[@trisymphony]

Looking forward to trying the improved interface. Maybe I can finally leave SolveSpace behind.

[@madstork91]

When I met you at the start of all the insanity in lockdowns at a BWW, we discussed AutoCADs use of "AutoLISP" and "VisuaLISP" which is a VBA integration into AutoCAD. I can tell you that in the past 3 years, the entire industry is looking to dump AutoDesk in very much the way people are dumping Adobe right now. Edit: I tried it. I can tell you that this may one day be able to replace AutoCAD, but 1.0 ain't it chief. It's so far away from it, that I may make by first video ever just to explain why.

[@henrikholst7490]

Do it! There's so many ways to help out the project and doing a breakdown of the solutions limitations would at this point probably be even more useful than minor PRs on the code base.

[@JohnnyThund3r]

Nobody is going to really challenge Autodesk anytime soon, but FreeCAD 1.0 is a big step... you can now legitimately make the case to use only FreeCAD for professional design work, though such conviction will be rewarded with additional work! Hard to say how valuable software freedom is worth, to me, it's worth more then the headaches of putting up ~somewhat~ inferior software.

[@madstork91]

@@JohnnyThund3r I hate using the term, but I am a professional AutoCAD user. I have used SketchUp professionally. I have screwed around in REVIT. I have programmed solutions in both AutoLISP and VisualLISP. I have modeled in probably half a dozen programs. Unless there is some skin, plugin, or mod of this software that significantly modifies it, I would classify this software as barely usable. No, I am not joking.

[@davidgoodnow269]

I just followed/subscribed to you in case you do it.

[@madstork91]

@@JohnnyThund3r That's the weird part. The foundations needed to challenge AutoCAD and Revit are there in a lot of programs, but they don't because of X or Y or just simply making a decision with their design. Every CAD program is iterative, too. AutoCAD is, iirc, using the Maya engine. It's a choice to not challenge them.

[@iiisaac1312]

FreeCAD is alright when you get used to it's workflow. However, I don't see it getting large share unless it adopts a workflow similar to the big names like solidworks. It's another "Gimp isn't Photoshop" situation. And as we all know, people in this situation are very lazy and see themselves as above learning another workflow.

[@markkalsbeek5883]

Graduated mechanical engineering and now I lost all my CAD licenses. So I just happened to have switched to freecad last week! I got my start in catia V5, and honestly it's not so different. What I love is the extremely feature rich plugin and optional workbench ecosystem. I just wish those were a little more user friendly, but it makes sense because their super expert-focused

[@iliketoast-q9b]

Why not Onshape, Solid Edge or *shudder* Fusion? FreeCAD still is severly lacking compared to even the free versions of proprietary CAD software.

[@jclosed2516]

@@iliketoast-q9b probably because all those "solutions" come with drawbacks. Fusion started as great free software for "small" users, but gets restriction after restriction. It also does not work without logging in, and the amount of work you can have is restricted, and don't get me started on cloud save only. Other software (like Onshape) has the same problem. No internet connection, no work. My work has been (I am retired now) electronic design and repair. I often come across weird shaped contraptions in apparatus than are broken and need to be replaced. Often those parts are not available any more, so I have to re-design them and print them on a 3D printer. FreeCAD is very capable of doing just these things. Yes - It has a learning curve, but I could use it after half a day, and was printing my first objects a few hours later. I have used it ever since...

[@OktoPutsch]

SolidEdge license is free for the hobbist, and free of charges for 2 years if your company is a startup. You're welcome

[@g04tn4d0]

When it can directly compete with AutoCAD and revit, that's it it's game over.

[@Artificial_Incompetence_Bot]

haha :) it can already compete with SolidWorks, Solid Edge, Onshape, Fusion 360, Inventor, PTC Creo. I was laughing because that form of CAD you mentioned is considered far more primitive in the CAD world. It only comes down to the building sector being more conservative in its production methods. So they simply don't have the need for this type of advanced CAD programs. With that said I'm pretty sure It should be surpassing mentioned CAD in short if it hasn't already. I'd look into the BIM workbench if I was you, and remember you can turn on the Python console in FreeCAD, that will give you the Python for every mouse click. Driving modeling with Python is rapidly becoming a stronger tool with today's advanced language models like chat GPT. Even for us non programmers. If you only need 2D drawings there's also another free open source CAD project named LibreCAD, it's more like AutoCAD.

[@1pcfred]

AutoCAD released Fusion 360 for free to hamstring open source development work. It worked too. Fusion is just good enough to quell momentum in open source development. It was a brilliant strategic move on their part.

[@jclosed2516]

@@1pcfred I dropped Fusion for FreeCAD, because I hate to be restricted, being forced to be always-on-line and having a mandatory account and subscription. And lately they also restrict what you can and cannot do. I don't like that. But hey - Everyone his or hers choice...

[@gregmurdoch3264]

Actually, the new version of Ubuntu will probably be a larger hindrance to people using Linux. I tried Ubuntu for ~1 month, ~1 month ago, it was a train wreck. For a basic, entry-level Linux distro, it was broken, glitchy, and dropped ever ball it could have dropped. Fedora, my normal distro, is far more usable, friendly, stable, and welcoming. Thinking back to old Ubuntu releases, they were a thing of beauty for anyone wanting to check out Linux, but now? I honestly couldn't recommend any Ubuntu Desktop version.

[@CrucialFlowResearch]

Xubuntu was decent 10 years ago

[@mgord9518]

I definitely agree. Ubuntu was my starter and I absolutely loved it. Last few years I've tried giving it another shot and I can't stand Snaps. Constantly bugging about restarting apps, random weird bugs among other things. Maybe PopOS will be the spiritual successor to Ubuntu from its golden years

[@JohnnyThund3r]

I had this same issue over a decade ago... Canonical is just weird, Masters of disaster... Can never recommend default Ubuntu after they installed Unity on me. Damn it! I just want Gnome 2 back!

[@mgord9518]

​@@octomancerHonestly I loved Unity, my biggest qualm was having to install a tweak tool to do basic customizations. I could even see myself using it today if it were well-supported

[@j.p.8248]

Linux Mint. Based on Ubuntu but without all the BS

[@DavidCoutinhoCG]

I love it, i already got materials here to study it, gonna specialize at FreeCAD.

[@Artificial_Incompetence_Bot]

Good! I'm formally trained in Simens NX and PTC Creo and definitely think it's worth learning FreeCAD. Tested it for 3 months now, wasn't hard to migrate from previous CAD knowledge. I'm amazed how strong it is and completely free, even for commercial use. Require no internet connection and works with every platform. It's the best time to get in on FreeCAD. Considering how many small companies and start ups will use this in the future. My advice is start with "Part Design" workbench and use it as far as you can. Classic CAD exercises is to recreate a 3D part from a 2D drawing and match the volume. If you want to build unbreakable parts I suggest you look into MIT Open Course Ware. Or there might also be youtubers who teaches you to use datum planes and expressions. When you feel like you master the Part Design-workbench you can move into Assembly-workbench (advanced CAD). In assembly you combine multiple parts into a bigger assembly with joints. Here the challenge is to pick the correct assembly constraints, the concept is similar to sketch constraints, but now we have movement in 6 degrees of freedom, 3 rotation and 3 translation. Your goal is to lock all except the one you want to move. There are tables of all constraints that show how any degrees of freedom each constraint locks, useful for beginners. Hope it helps, Good luck!

[@Artificial_Incompetence_Bot]

Had some time to test 1.0 RC, it's way better than I expected. You now have the ability to create one large sketch containing all the features you need and the apply features on selected closed lines exclusively. Gone are the days for Master/Slave sketches for every individual feature. This keeps the construction history clean. This workflow is more like NX and other big CAD package. Coming from NX I really like the improvements and changes to the workflow.

[@jooch_exe]

I actually use a lot of openscad.

[@hypocritical7379]

OpenSCAD is compatible with freecad, you can use openscad for modeling, then freecad for assembly, FEA, CAM, CFD, animation, and many others things

[@OktoPutsch]

Proof that masochism exists.

[@SenileOtaku]

One other effect of a viable Linux CAD program, one that starts getting a notable adoption, might convince companies like AutoCAD that Linux is a viable platform for them to support.

[@goury]

It's not a company

[@ALinuxEnthusiast]

Has Adobe ported Photoshop, Illustratior, and Premiere because GIMP, Inkscape, and Kdenlive exist? Nope. What makes you think that Autodesk will be any different? Also, FreeCAD has been out for a very long time: the last stable is 0.21.2. That you can make a CAD work on platforms other than Windows was a point that has been proven for a very long time.

[@LTPottenger]

Maya is the only adobe product worth using any more and given their terrible practices I would choose Free CAD over AutoCAD if I needed it and it was at all possible. But in general adobe is a decayed mess of outdated and scammy products at this point.

[@justanothercomment416]

They know it's the preferred platform. MS pays companies to not support Linux.

[@AsciiWolf]

We had Pro/ENGINEER on Linux a long time ago (I believe that it was ported from IRIX or HP-UX). I believe that it was the first and most powerful CAD we had on Linux. Sadly, its last Linux release was in 2004 or 2005.

[@Acoustic_Theory]

My issue with it is that it still looks like IronCAD from the 2000s, when I was in college, and it's even less intuitive to use.

[@JohnnyThund3r]

I spent a few days learning FreeCAD/Ondsel ES... it's very worthy software. I'm wayy- faster in Blender, but if I wanna loft a boat hull now, I'll use Ondsel because it makes the process easy and fast as compared to the Blender way of doing things.

[@AidanofVT]

I've been trying FreeCAD about once per year for a while. It always comes off as a case study in committee design and volunteer construction. The horrible workflows and user interface are subjective, and I confess I'm a novice, but what's not subjective are the straight-up malfunctions which inevitably arise after an hour or two of usage. And every time, I'm assured that FreeCAD is now "The best it's ever been!" Anyway, I'm sure I'll try it again when the next opportunity arises. Maybe this time is different.

[@hausmeisterbanane]

Don't hold your breath, them ignoring common CAD workflow conventions didn't change

[@MisterMakerNL]

Pls don't overhype it, it's still not like the expensive CAD programs that only big companies can afford to use. But there has been done so much work, it feels that the program grows exponential. And if we keep this up it's just a matter of time untill succeed in giving the whole world 3D CAD for free!

[@acroduster]

Been using freecad for a while now. It's becoming a pretty robust as a cad cam workflow at this point, by .19 I found I was actually trusting the gcode it was producing. I wish it would focus a bit more on lathe specific gcode as it's really way more set up to do milling work. But it is possible to produce lathe tool paths if your creative enough lol aside from that it's by far better than the early say 2000-2003 pro engineer or solid works, actually is more capable of either of those as of now. Aside from organic modeling which there is blender for, it's a darn good thing.

[@Artificial_Incompetence_Bot]

I learned NX/unigraphics back in early 2000 it ran on the Solaris platform back then haha. It wasn't nearly as strong as FreeCAD is now, back then fillet/rounds was nice on paper but always crashed in practice. Have you noticed that you can export your quad models from Blender using the "export to iges" plug-in in Blender. Import it as either NURBS surfaces or solids and continue work on them in FreeCAD?

[@cottawalla]

We ran Apollo workstations in our engineering faculty for five years. Their "Unix" environments, both BSD and SysV, were emulated on top of the native DomainOS, which btw was written in Objective Pascal. The Unix emulation had major shortcomings and unresolvable bugs. The CAD software we used ran under DomainOS. For us the Unix emulations were unusable for anything other than simple single-user/single-task applications.

[@anon_y_mousse]

Object Pascal, no "ive". I've asked myself for years why that's the name, considering Objective-C had a more sensical name, but whatever, it's still a great language anyway.

[@seebaastian]

what about the people in the hobbies space?? I use freecad to model all my 3D pieces. It's a hate and love history. I hope that with this release, the things improve ;)

[@Gaius__]

Very interesting video. I know nothing about CAD, photo editing or video editing software (apart from what the software is being used for, obviously) but I still watch videos of experts using applications like _Affinity_ or _Da Vinci,_ and comparing them to their Windows equivalent ... simply because each sophisticated application offering a real alternative to Windows-only software is another step towards the goal of making Linux as a whole better for everybody.

[@rezah336]

i have used it and can do anything i want with it, the scripting feature is very good, thanks to the devs

[@1pcfred]

Freecad doesn't actually support Standard even if it looks like it does while you're using it. Freecad can't export in Standard units. When you try the scale of your project will be completely off. Which seems like an easy enough fix to me. But from what I've heard the internal engine of Freecad is such a mess it isn't. It is fundamentally flawed.

[@rezah336]

​@@1pcfred what is standard?

[@1pcfred]

@@rezah336 standard is short for the international industrial standard inch. Which is often confused with Imperial but that's because people are ignorant. ignorant adjective 1. lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated Example: he was told constantly that he was ignorant and stupid Now I hope that's no one you know.

[@rezah336]

@@1pcfred i use si units, but i have never had problems with scaling

[@1pcfred]

@@rezah336 right, You don't use standard so the problem wouldn't crop up for you. Freecad handles everything internally in metric. The lead developer of the program was never interested in supporting standard so he never designed the software so it could ever support standard in any meaningful way. Switching the units freecad can appear to support standard but it just can't export anything in standard units. At least that's been my experience. I haven't tried freecad in a number of years now but I don't suspect anything's changed. The lead devs just are not interested in supporting standard units. If I was a cynical type I'd say the lack of support is malicious intent on their part. Being as I have had the displeasure of interacting with one of them in the past.

[@amadensor]

I'm already using freecad for designing combat robots and other things. These improvements will make my life so much easier.

[@vishalkumar040393]

Congratulations to the developers and users 🎉 Great news for Linux user. I do all my cad designing in FreeCAD.

[@MrBiky]

Jokes on you, I've been using FreeCAD for a while now for my home projects, like a loft bed, a trailer enclosure (basically my tool garage) and a secure (anti porch pirates) parcel box.

[@ginger_toggaf]

Useful for converting stuff. But it's no inventor.

[@BitsOfTruth]

I use FreeCad for 3D Printing.

[@xelatonivs8691]

I work for a big electrical contractor and all their desktops and labtops use windows software. The construction trades need to go open source, plus will save them money.

[@skewty]

Not possible until we remove the corruption in Western governments. Look at Germany's "attempts" to use Open Source and see how Microsoft "solves" legal issues.

[@shifureisaikyou2055]

I'm watching this with interest for a while, it is not quite there but looks promising

[@AndreMonthy]

I've been using versions of FreeCAD for the past year, having moved from Fusion 360. FreeCAD had a pretty unintuitive workflow, and TNP was a killer that required annoying workarounds. I think FreeCAD has a good shot of becoming the Blender of CAD and over time compete with the pretty stagnant CAD market leaders (cough cough Autodesk). The only thing still lacking is CAM. I have tried using FreeCAD CAM workbench, but it is simply not there yet. So I end up using other CAM software. It will be awesome when I can do all my CAD CAM in one free open source software.

[@CEOofGameDev]

2024 gonna be the year of the linux engineer baybeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[@markcahalan5698]

This is great. Now if we could just get tax software, we'll be golden

[@davidgoodnow269]

Linux accounting software has been around for more than a decade, GnuCash was certified by the tax authority in Britain in 2006 and exports to Quicken/QuickBooks if that's what your accountant needs. Or, you can just print out the tax forms you need and run queries in GnuCash to fill in the blanks. That it isn't some kind of certified global standard doesn't change the fact that it has been doing _the accounting books_ correctly for nearly twenty years, and _accounting methods_ *do* have to meet a certified global standard!

[@Rico_Roberts]

Does not work(appimage) in Fedora.

[@thechillhacker]

Oh man, my first real CAD training was on Apollos back in high school (and yes they were very obsolete then too - late 90s). I loved those things. These days, I like FreeCAD but oh man, OpenSCAD is the cat's pajamas. Programmatically making "stuff" is awesome. That being said, I'll have to play around with this new FreeCAD release. Thanks Bryan!

[@snowrabbit9558]

Wow a none political video from Bryan!! Call the news 😂😂😂 is he finally back?! The old awesome Bryan?!! Could it be 😳😳

[@Techsupport243]

To be fair so much of the news is unfortunately political nowadays. Also its nice to hear a sane opinion in the tech space nowadays. Most important people seem to be nuts.

[@snowrabbit9558]

@@Techsupport243 but I just miss him talking about positive stuff.. he could be a KZbin mega star ⭐️ I love his tech insights a lot

[@Techsupport243]

@@snowrabbit9558 I get it, but I do like that he is keeping us informed on the mess the tech industry has become. I would rather be miserable and informed than ignorant and happy.

[@awkwardsaxon9418]

Onshape is really intuitive for me and I learned most of it by trial and error. I haven't tried the newest version but Freecad is really confusing to me. Why don't they make the design more intuitive and prettier to look at?

[@matthew_scarbrough]

They finally fixed the topology naming bug!? it's about a time! \s In all seriousness, it was a very annoying issue. Basically, the way it has been is that if you named a shape, "my_awesome_cube" and then "shadowed" (can't remember if that's the right term) that object into other parts or what have you, then you went back and performed a function on "my_awesome_cube", "my_awesome_cube" got renamed to like, "function on my_awesome_cube001". It's been a while since I have done CAD anything, but basically you had to constantly go back and rename and jack with simple things to keep your work consistent. It was good in that it required you to SERIOUSLY think out exactly how you are going to tackle a project, but that also meant that it took longer to do basic work.

[@grisflyt]

SolidWorks is perhaps more than anything what has kept me on Windows.

[@ralfbaechle]

it may not yet be perfect but just as with Linux itself there's a point where a free software project is good enough, it will be used by students and other no or tiny budget projects, it will be used for skunkworks projects in company and spread like a virus, eventualy commercial support will pop up and make the project more viable for enterprises. I've got AutoCAD (long time ago) and LibreCAD (more recently) experience so forgive the ignorant and hopefully not provocative question, how does LibreCAD compare to FreeCAD?

[@DerTechNick]

I'm sorry but as someone who tried to like FreeCAD, its just bad, even terrible I would say. The paid CAD solutions or the free tier of these are just way better than FreeCAD.

[@sirrodneyffing1]

Linux community seems to spend 90% of its time obsessed with pretty interface tweaks instead of fundamental road blocks to wider adoption. Freecad needs livelink to Blender/nodes, that would basically provide the same functionality as Rhino and Grasshopper.

[@BeefIngot]

To me freecad needs to - Be stable -Allow multiple extruded from multiple profiles in a sketch. - Have a functional timeline (I am aware of the tip hacks) Just these would make its pretty close to usable, but the workflows are still a disaster and as an outsider I'm aware what I'm about to say next might come across as inflammatory but I've never seen a community with more toxic positivity (anger towards those pointing out serious flaws especially ones not close to being fixed) than freecad. As far as I can tell, Freecad just isn't even aiming to fix the problems I hear most people complain about. Yay for fixing TNP though. That is a big improvement.

[@hawaiianryan1890]

Thanks for helping to spread the word about FreeCAD.

[@beonyou]

Great video, but find it in v0.21 in my Discover tool ... Will test it cause Autodesk / Fusion360 still don't work with Linux.

[@WrecklessSandwich]

This is an issue on the PCB design side as well. KiCad is great for what it is, and the most recent version is indeed servicable if I had to use it. Given the option, would I use it over Altium, the only piece of software that keeps me on Windows? Absolutely not. It's not a C vs C++ type of argument. It's feels more like going from an IDE to a good quality text editor that giver you syntax highlighting and basic autocomplete. It's missing a lot of buttons, a lot of the existing functions are slower to access (often due to lack of keyboard shortcuts), and the UI is generally clunky. Could I use KiCad 7+ if I had to, especially for smaller projects? Yes. Is it at that crticial point of making people want to jump ship from the competition? No.

[@Topher_Knows]

Brics has been a LONG TIME Linux supported release. Compare Brics to AutoDesk, not FreeCAD to AutoCAD. As someone who lives in CAD applications, it's not fair to expect FreeCAD to compete. However, it's pretty freaking good for what it is. Heck, QCAD is pretty amazing too, and KiCAD kicks major butt for its userbase. We took out 3DSMax, now we need to take out AutoDesk and Adobe.

[@fx_node]

assembly workbench? I might give it another go. I have made a few freeCAD tutorials.

[@shlomobachar4123]

I keep 2 operating systems (win+linux) just for this reason. Although FreeCAD is good but still there are other options which are better and more acceptable widely.

[@juandesalgado]

Surprised that old Apollo workstations are the example to contrast to (reasonable, though, if that was your working experience). In Windows, MicroStation or AutoCAD are very popular, and my first question for FreeCAD would be... can it be scripted? (which is a prominent feature in MicroStation or AutoCAD). Glad to see that FreeCAD runs an embedded Python interpreter.

[@agtugo9197]

I was able to use it because I had a lot of experience with CAD software but I had to do things that I never had to do before. For me it was easy to make those changes but I worked as a CAD designer for years. I guess now it is usable, but I still feel freecad is very behind from other software.

[@rudypieplenbosch6752]

Not purely focussed on CAD but certainly very capable, Blender has been around for quite a while for Linux.

[@justliberty4072]

Maybe it is time to try FreeCAD again. I couldn't take the UI; it was completely un-intuitive. If the GUI is hard to use, then why have one? I switched to cadquery and have enjoyed the programmability.

[@arpiku8408]

I've been using the release candidate 1.0, honestly sometimes it gets frustrating, but damn the absolute potential of FreeCAD is leaps ahead of other badly priced closed source software solution, we can have something really special here.

[@autohmae]

No, but what Ubuntu will do is with the next release make it a 1 click install to get FreeCAD and all the other programs we need. I've been running Debian for decades, often just doing upgrades in place without breaking things. A huge deal, it might seem boring, but boring is good !

[@peaps]

Looking forward to the 1.0 release. I use 0.21 at the moment for all my odds and sods 3d printer designs, despite its foibles. The thing which I appreciate the most about it is that it is not at all cloud based. All your files are yours, on your Personal Computer PC and thus you can never be held to ransom.

[@astacc]

Looks like I'll need to give it a try next time I want to make 3D model to print.. Tried FreeCAD half a year ago and after hours of being stuck on weird underconstrained / overconstrained errors I gave up, opened onshape and within half an hour I had the model I wanted (I followed exactly the same steps as I did in FreeCAD but it just worked). I'll happily leave onshape because their license is meh.. but it's only thing I can use (everything else is too expensive for how much I would use it, not to mention linux support)

[@dsfs17987]

computer aided drafting? really? freecad will never ever gain any real traction if they don't copy at least some of the very well established UI form mainstream CAD packages, that is if they want to increase their user base, maybe they don't want to gain popularity in fear that it will be bought up by Autodesk for instance, or they try to avoid lawsuits, which seems a bit odd since most of UI that FreeCAD is lacking is the same across payed CADs anyways, and they don't sue each other over them

[@pcallycat9043]

Excited to see freecad go 1.0, but this is not new software and has been available and progressing for quite some time. I’m not quite sure why the presentation here assumes (pretends?) like this hasn’t been available for years.

[@nakfan]

Brilliant video 👍 Immediately sub’ed… BR, Per (Denmark)

[@elalemanpaisa]

The most important Linux release of 2024 is the Kernel 6.12

[@encapsulatio]

Why exactly?

[@elalemanpaisa]

@@encapsulatio because it will be the LTS

[@anon_y_mousse]

It's always good to have options, but I'd say that if you're using FreeCAD instead of Blender to design 3D printing parts, you might want to consider a change.

[@lesh4357]

This is good for Engineering & Architectural companies. If the user interface has had significant improvements and has features for 3D printing etc it could also be good for the hobbyist and "Home Engineers". The user interface was un-intuitive, so I have been hoping for improvements there. I will be giving the RC 1 a spin as soon as I can.

[@nevyn38]

I think you undersold just how important this is: More and more people are after this sort of software due to the rise of 3d printing.

[@aliwalil4160]

That is AWESOMEEEEEE. We now need Affinity for linux and are ready to ditch Windows

[@snoobab_86]

I am very excited about this. Will most definitely be trying this out.

[@toby2581]

Same issue with digital audio software. I can't change OS if the most important software I use is incompatible with Linux.

[@CrucialFlowResearch]

Hahah i have been using all my windows VST plugins on Linux for 8 years now, it's certainly possible to install digital audio software on linux, even if it's windows software

[@davidgoodnow269]

Dude. I compiled a custom Linux kernel specifically for doing digital audio work in _2001._ Wah harder.

[@toby2581]

@@davidgoodnow269 "Just compile your own kernel"! "How come normies don't use Linux?!"

[@davidgoodnow269]

@@toby2581 I had just bought a magazine with the installation disk to start with Linux two weeks before. I found out what was causing the problems, learned about what I would need to do to fix it, and my boss let me print out the entire kernel man file on a printer at work. I used that to figure out what options I needed to set, and how. Refusing to use your brain is a _you_ problem!

[@sideprojectslab7352]

Still chock-full of bugs :D but seriously, for being free it's fantastic and I use it all the time