Title basically.
One of my windows computers, which happens to be the one I happen to do the most CAD work on, can’t upgrade to windows 11 due to having an Ivy Bridge era Xenon (it’s an E5-1680 v2 for the curious, older used workstations are fantastic bang for the buck computers).
Switching to Linux on this computer has been in the cards for a while, but I hadn’t been in a hurry to do it. Looks like my hand might be getting forced…
Or if like me, you want something closer to fusion or Solidworks, there’s Onshape. At least until it enshitifies.
Hah, I was about to say they seem to have misspelled FreeCAD.
That’s unhelpful. The person might be a professional in a work that mandates using Fusion360. “FreeCAD is the best Linux supported CAD program but you should try running a VM inside of Linux and see if fusion 360 works a” is way more helpful.
If they’re a pro and the software doesn’t support the OS, it’d be kinda foolish to not stick with what’s supported.i
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I mean when I first tried FreeCAD a few months ago I couldn’t get it to function AT ALL. Literally everything I tried to do took minutes to process and this happened on several different PCs. That issue somehow resolved itself and it’s working now but it left me very wary of relying on the application, if I had been on a deadline I’d have been fucked. Never had a problem like that with Fusion360.
Well yeah, but some companies allow employees to choose their OS. Of course FreeCAD is good enough just like Gimp and Blender are good enough to replace Adobe stuff but sometimes people have workflows built around them or even custom scripts that only run on a specific platform.
You make a fair point but the tone might be off-putting for people thinking about switching to Linux. 100% mention FreeCAD as a fully featured CAD software that just works on Linux but we shouldn’t heckle him for wanting Fusion360.
Oh, I know. I am familiar with the fusion workflow and it generally just works - even when you mess with a feature way earlier in your timeline.
I model some vaguely complex things and find that I often fiddle with things. From the last I looked into it, OSS CAD didn’t handle this very well.
OpenSCAD can also be fun if you like fiddling with parametric designs.
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It really has. As a lover of FOSS I can say that there still is an order of magnitude regarding usability, workflow and robustness of the models between freecad and fusion. I dislike everything about autodesk and its business model but I have to admit that fusion is also my go-to when I need to model something fast.
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I used to work as a mechanical engineer, so I am used to CAD Systems since I started with Autocad, went on to Pro/E Wildfire 2, had a stint with NX and Inventor. All of them used productively within the context of professional work.
Fusion was the first CAD I used for my hobby (3D printing) and it is seriously powerful.
Freecad the way it is now (and I tried 1.0 as soon as it got out) is akin to the old days where it wouldn’t let you work with a partially defined sketch or implied confinements by hovering/snapping to the line. I feel like I have to get out a piece of paper and plan out my model before I begin modeling, while using fusion I feel I can just pick it up and develop whatever idea I have right then and there.
It has gotten a lot better - really came a long way since the previous versions where I tried easel as well for the better workflow before 1.0. I never managed to get the same efficiency and usability I get from fusion, despite really trying.
How old are the old days, I used CATIA V5 for a stretch around 20 years ago and I’ve mostly gelled with freecad pretty well (some odd decisions here and there and some bugs, though a lot of those can be attributed to the kernel). I’m wondering if I’ve just got an old CAD head.
Thanks, I’ll have to give it a try
Got to be fair, since the 1.x update it got so much more usable for me
Yep, very much improved. I recking it will turn out like Blender. It sucks right now compared to some other tools like Fusion360, but given time it will improve and at some point it will tip over into being the default. It all depends on buy in. If a few bigger players get behind it because they can avoid predatory fees and costs associated with using a proprietary piece of software they will switch, invest in their own mods, then drive the industry knowledge standard towards FreeCAD. That will break the hold the proprietary apps have as workers gain skills in the new context, leaving the old proprietary stuff to rot. I hope it is soon, but it will happen eventually.
I think I remember people saying they got it working with this
https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps
That being said, stuff like Fusion 360 changes quite often and even if it works now it might break compatibility with the future update.
FreeCAD has come a long way since with the 1.0 release and the 1.1 release also has lots of good quality of life improvements.
You could also try installing Windows IoT LTSC.
At this point I want to give Linux an earnest go on this box. I bought a second SSD and will just unplug the windows drive for a while.
I am curious if fusion will support LTSC and/of whatever version of 11 they call out.
If you’re going to pirate, you might as well get Windows Server. It runs everything without any of the Windows garbage preinstalled like Xbox.
Sweet, thanks!
This script is why I ended up learning how to use OnShape. It’s probably much better nowadays, but I could not get it working a few years ago. I needed CAD and OnShape was close enough to Inventor that it was almost frictionless.
Try https://github.com/TibixDev/winboat Haven’t tried fusion but Photoshop works fine with it.
It is fairly trivial to bypass the win11 upgrade requirements, if that is preferable to you.
Yeah it’s annoying still, I have an 80gb partition I put windows on for work purposes, I told it to check for updates yesterday when I was signing off for work. It popped up with an option that said Security updates are ending Oct 14th, and a box to click to enroll for extended updates till Oct 14th, 2026. I clicked it and it said I was enrolled for another year. It’s a sure sign they are trying to force people to move to Windows 11, but apparently they will be making the security updates all the same and not sending them to everyone by default.
EU forced them to give another year in the EU. Elsewhere, people are out of luck.
I’m in Tennessee, maybe they made it automatic for the people in the EU, and left it opt in for the U.S.
It’s very easy to bypass TPM / Secure Boot requirements and install Windows 11 on Ivy Bridge, though I’d favour going Linux anyways and make a Windows virtual machine for stuff like if you can’t give up proprietary software.
That’s just me. If you want to install Win11: Basically you just need Rufus to make your boot-able USB stick and you tick a box to disable the checks. That’s it. On the same PC hardware it’ll HWID activate, don’t buy a key.
Or if it doesn’t just use massgrave activator found in github.
I haven’t looked into this at all, but wasn’t Microsoft threatening to block updates if your system doesn’t meet the requirements?
They did once but never have. Four years later in a couple days in fact.
Thanks for the information. I think I’ll give Linux a go on a spare SSD and can treat this as my fallback plan.
Just wanted to mention, I do this for work apps, including Autodesk products (and a bunch of niche industry apps).
I have a base VM for Windows (really for a few different versions of windows, some applications are horrifically outdated but still needed), which has nothing installed but the bare necessities. None of the junk from the microsoft store, just a working set of drivers, including GPU for pass through. I block local network access for everything but access to a specific directory on my NAS (mounted proxmox-side so Windows doesnt see it as a network endpoint, just as a mounted drive).
I clone that image for each application I want to run independently.
Its been my method for a good few years now, aside from my work laptop its the only bit of windows I have. It also keeps a nice separation of my work stuff from my personal stuf.
I then boot the VM for whatever application I need, and off we go!
Highly recommended if you’ve got the setup to support it. And you don’t have to go anywhere near the extent I do, I mention it just to share how far you can take an approach like this.
Hope it helps!
Thanks! A VM is a totally viable option.
Sure thing. Probably you’ll (most people) want a Stable Release or Long Term Service distribution to start with instead of rolling releases or bleeding edge distributions. I threw myself into the deep end to learn faster but not everyone wants that. I’m willing to risk breaking things beyond repair to learn, and have done so lol. You know yourself so that’s up to you.
I’ll give you my personal shit list if you like:
Pop_OS! I view System76 as incompetent after unfortunately owning a laptop sold by them. Long story, bad developers. Big regret.
Canonical is pretty notoriously awful now. So avoid Ubuntu and IMO stuff downwind (forks) of them. People really like Mint however, you can decide for yourself.
RedHat - Fedora is also making worrying decisions lately. Sad because I really loved Fedora. Second best repository to Arch/AUR. Again you can look up their controversies and decide for yourself.
Manjaro is infamously incompetent. Some diehard defenders, I don’t get it. Lots of needless breakage in updates and AUR incompatibility. I looked this up to make sure my opinion was still current. It still is.
My gold list:
I like Debian or OpenSUSE for stable releases.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed for rolling release.
CachyOS for gaming optimisations and as a bleeding edge Arch fork. I also love Pacman and the Octopi repository front end using Paru.
Just to add to this:
Linux Mint is popular, because they are what Ubuntu could have been. They give you Ubuntu without all of Canonical’s anti-user decisions. They also have a version based on Debian if you really want to avoid Ubuntu completely.
Bazzite is also a very popular recommendation for gaming.
Aw, I had completely forgotten about the Debian based version of Mint. That’s an excellent choice too of course.
Spoiler: Win 11 will say it can’t run on anything.
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You know where else it’s easy to run Windows 11? In a VM on Linux.
Cool? Not what is being asked tho
While I’d like to know the same, I’d also recommend reading their EOS page. You have time to switch over.
**What does end of support mean for Windows 10 and Fusion?** Fusion will continue to work on Windows 10 after the 14th - however, Autodesk will no longer consider Windows 10 for validation, bug fixing, and product support of future releases. Application compatibility and support will not be guaranteed for this platform for releases after this date.No luck. I use OnShape.
This has been my experience. I couldn’t even get logged in to Fusion via Bottles.
welp, looks like I won’t be using fusion when I inevitably need some design program on my personal computer again
I tried to make Fusion 360 run under wine and just couldn’t get it reliably working.
There were problems logging in, problems with resolution, issues with fonts and DLL errors. It just wasn’t stable enough to rely on.
It is getting forced.
You have VERY SHORT time until the day…
so DO IT NOW.
