Apr 2, 2013

Lost in Support: DraftSight

DraftSight, the free 2D dwg-based solution by Dassault Systemes, is an interesting choice for everybody.

export SUPPORTED_ENVIRONMENT= 32bit Ubuntu, Fedora and OpenSUSE are the supported distros for DraftSight. Unfortunately Dassault doesn't provide any official workarounds or instructions for installation on unsupported environments like 64bit versions and/or other distros.



Installation/Installation Instructions: Even on a supported environment the installation of DraftSight needs some tricks in order to complete it successfully.
On Ubuntu you have to perform the installation via gdebi and on OpenSUSE you need to enable the Packman repository.

Active Bugs/Bug Fixes: DraftSight regularly provides 3-4 new versions each year. Many problems have been fixed with these releases but unfortunately some new ones appear at every new release even on previously well-working features.

Linux Related Answers: Don't expect miracles or detailed technical answers but usually you will get the correct answer at your Linux questions.

Help/Command Reference: Many tutorials, videos, webinars, troubleshooting tips are provided. DraftSight's online community and the built-in manual are the perfect places to start learning about DraftSight's functionality. Also some help resources are available on YouTube and Facebook

Development/Improvements/New Features: DraftSight's goal is to provide a complete but not bloated 2D CAD solution highly compatible with AutoCAD. So it adds periodically some new functionality in order to satisfy the users' wishes.

Revision Cloud, one of the newest available commands in DraftSight
Summary: Dassault really tries hard to provide quality support for DraftSight.
Linux version needs definitely some extra love with the installers and generally DraftSight needs to be more careful with its upgrades.

Rate: 4/5

This post is a part of the Lost in Support series. My main goal is to evaluate, compare and rate the provided support of all the available Linux CAD applications. A new tag named LiS will indicate all the posts of these series.

2 comments:

  1. Hi!

    Did you notice a "cursor lag" in a DraftSight working area?

    It happens to me all the time. I was looking for a solution, but all what I've found is that some folks have that problem as well.

    Gretings

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This cursor lag you mention is a common problem indeed. It has been reported several times before as well.

      There are 3 possible reasons:
      1. Make sure that your graphic drivers are correctly installed and updated.
      2. Make sure you are not using DraftSight inside any virtual machine (Virtual box etc). DraftSight is not supported in virtualized environment.
      3. Sometimes DraftSight does not work properly with large drawings.

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