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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<title>LinuxCAD Impressions LG #30</title>
</HEAD>
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#A000A0"
ALINK="#FF0000">
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<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">LinuxCAD Impressions</font></H1>
<H4>By <A HREF="mailto:rwuest@sire.ddns.org">Robert Wuest</A>
</H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<h3><u>Friday, June 12</u></h3>
<P>I started calling Software Forge first thing this morning. NT had crashed
yesterday and hosed it's own installation. I had no rescue disk. The day was
starting real bad because I had an instrument design project getting behind. I
needed to work on the mechanical layout. I'm sick of problems with microsoft
operating system products.
<P>I've been using AutoCAD for over 14 years and have seen it turn into a fairly
decent CAD package. I use R13 and have used everything back to around 2.0.
<h3><u>Getting It</u></h3> <P>Boot into Linux. It always works. There's a
reasonably priced cad package I'd seen news posting after news posting
advertising itself. Supposed to be like AutoCAD. I'm just going to breakdown
and buy it and do the design in that. Start Netscape and head to the <A
HREF="http://laulujoutsen.pc.helsinki.fi/~mjr/linux/cola.html">cola
archives</a>. It's moved it's home, so I change the bookmark, search for
LinuxCAD <A
HREF="http://laulujoutsen.pc.helsinki.fi/~mjr/linux/cola.archive/1998-06/mjr.1998-06-03.010">(the
archive)</a> and find Software Forge's home, <A
HREF="http://www.linuxcad.com/">http://www.linuxcad.com</A>. All it has is an <A
HREF="mailto:sales@softwareforge.com">E-mail address</A> and a phone number,
(847) 891-5971, in Chicago, Illinois.
<P>Screen-shots are there, check them out. I guess, from the numerous copies
of the ad I had seen, I was expecting something that acted like AutoCAD.
Notice the first window shows the columbia drawing, <A
HREF="http://www.softwareforge.com/linuxcad/mini_columbia.gif">columbia.dwg</A>,
and the <A HREF="http://www.softwareforge.com/linuxcad/avtocad1.gif">second
window</A>, that it's title is "AvtoCAD-SoftwareForge".
<P><A HREF="http://www.softwareforge.com/linuxcad/pricing.html">http://www.softwareforge.com/linuxcad/pricing.html</A> says this:
<BLOCKQUOTE>
"LinuxCAD is a true open software product and as such it has been ported to all
major UNIX platforms. The pricing of LinuxCAD for platforms other than Intel
depends from the number of copies you have chosen to purchase , the more copies
the lesser price. All ports retain full original functionality and are fully
compatible with original LinuxCAD for Linux for Itnel and with AutoCAD".
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>"True open software product"? Where's the source? The license is in no way open
and the source is no where to be found. Meaningless buzzwords.
<P>I call and call all day: someone finally answers the phone about mid afternoon
and sells me a copy. I'm a little confused as to who was serving who after
that conversation, but I did manage to buy a copy and download it off of their
ftp site with no problem. And she told me that there have been over 100 copies
sold. So now I've forked out the $$$ for this thing and what follows is what
I experienced.
<P>The readme file (on the ftp server) said to put the archive in the directory
where you want to install it and untar it. Enough for those who know their way
around Linux pretty well. I go to the file with TkDesk and my pop-up menu isn't
right for the file :-0. This file is unconventionally named slk96_tar.gz, not
slk96.tar.gz like it should be, so I promptly renamed it.
<P>Examining the contents, I see a straight collection of 25 files, no
directories, no man pages, info pages or html docs. There are several .dxs,
.mnu, .scr and .txt files. I make a directory linuxcad, moved the archive in
there and run extract off the tkdesk pop up.
<P><aside><BR>
A lot of users will be lost from those very brief instructions. This is what I
finally did to install properly, IMO:
<P>As root, I made a directory, /usr/local/lib/linuxcad and moved all of the files
there. In my /usr/local/bin directory, I created symlinks:
<PRE>
$ ln -s ../lib/linuxcad/lcad lcad
$ ln -s ../lib/linuxcad/linuxcad linuxcad
</PRE>
<P>There should at least be a makefile included to do this as "make
install".<BR>
</aside>
<P>The readme file also has this <em>bombshell</em>:
<PRE>
" Optional LinuxCAD extensions
================================
1) Print option:
Hardcopy to DeskJet , LaserJet
and to MSWindows based LinuxCAD printserver
---------------------
$100
2) Plot option:
To HP-GL compatible plotters
---------------------
$100
3) DXF Import option
---------------------
$100
4) Customization option:
Includes
4.1 Hot keys menu and user programmable pull down
menu.
4.2 GNU C/C++ programming interface.
---------------------
$200
5) 3D design option
---------------------
$200"
</PRE>
<P>This is not a $75 package, <em>it's a $775 package</em>.
<h3><u>First Impressions</u></h3>
<P>Double clicking (back in TkDesk) the executable I saw that it ran, produced no
window and exited with status 0. It had spit out out an error message, which
came out on my login vc:
<PRE>
LinuxCAD v 1.53
Portable Computer Aided Design program for Linux and Unix.
Usage:
linuxcad <name of new or existing .dxs file>
</PRE>
<P>But I didn't see that until I started an xterm and ran it from there. So I
gave it a filename this time and it ran. Here's the command I used:
<PRE>
$ ./linuxcad test.dxs
</PRE>
<P>It puts itself in the background. I exited immediately and it gave me a dialog
asking if I wanted to save my changes. What changes? I had just started and
exited. I'm not even going to read the docs. Just see what I can learn by
fiddling with it a bit. I can immediately see that this needs polish.
<PRE>
$ ./linuxcad test.dxs # again.
</PRE>
<P>The "line" command worked, but "l" didn't. "Move" worked and "w" selected entities
by window, but the "m" command didn't work. OK, it doesn't have command
aliases. Oh, they're $200.
<P>I draw a few lines. "line", click, click, <CR>. Oops, still drawing the line.
OK, right click. The line is placed, but in the text area, all that's there is:
<PRE>
Command aborted !
Command:
</PRE>
<P>There are no scroll bars and no handle to resize the command area. There are 3
lines of command area stretching across the bottom of the window. I can scroll
back by using X-selection, but that doesn't give very good control.
<P>Line editing is very poor. My arrow keys do nothing, The backspace key
works, but <HOME>, <END>, any extended key does nothing. I start a
command and can't find a key that cancels it. The right mouse button will, but
why doesn't <CR>, <ESC> or ^-c work. Let's try all the keys
:-). ^-z, ^-x, ^-c, etc. ^-j causes a "point expected !" message. After a
lot of keys, it crashes. Looks like a buffer overrun to me. Restart. It
crashes every time and work is lost. No core dump or error to the parent
shell.
<P>^-m opens a command history window with both scroll bars, but I can't type a
command in it. It just beeps at any key except the cursor control keys now
work! The cursor is not visible, but <PGUP> and <PGDN> do what they're
supposed to and <UP> and <DN> seem to.
<P>That command history window insists on staying over the drawing area. I use
my M-<PGDN> (which I have defined in ~/.fvwmrc to lower a window) and the
window goes away. If I do any window manager operation that brings the window
to the top, the history window ends up over the drawing area. It has an "Exit"
button, so I press it.
<P>There is no coordinate display in the main window. "Pline" doesn't work. "c"
doesn't work to close multiple line segments.
<PRE>
Command:line
From point:0,0
To point:1000,1000
To point:
</PRE>
<P>No way to end it with keys. Have to right click again. Too man unnecessary
linefeeds wasting vertical screen space. No "Zoom" command.
<P>After about an hour of playing:
<CENTER><EM>********** This is not AutoCAD **********</EM></CENTER>
<P>This program does not have an AutoCAD interface, which, based on all of the
comparisons made by SoftwareForge to AutoCAD, it should have. There are
commands to zoom: "zoomw", "zoomall". "Zoom" should use the acad interface.
Other commands do. And there is no equivelant to the "x" option. I do this
often in acad:
<PRE>
z e z .9x
</PRE>
<P>If you don't know acad, that will give a 90% zoom factor scaled to the display
window (everything is visible with a little border anound the outside).
<P>The top of the screen has six menu items and 6 buttons. Draw/line starts line
drawing. The edit menu has no undo. "Undo" doesn't seem to work. Undo is
under "Edit/Edit../Undo/Set mark" and "Edit/Edit../Undo/Undo to last mark" It
looks like one has to set marks and can't just walk backwards undoing actions
one at time.
<P>3D'll run another $200 (item 5). Draw/Draw 3D.../Sphere gets me this message:
<PRE>
"This is an optional feature of LinuxCAD
Please check the readme files to see the current pricing
for the optional features.
Command:"
</PRE>
<P>Drawing area and window display area aren't the same. You must
"Options/Settings/Screen Extents/..." on the menu. This is something I really
don't like right away.
<P>No short commands. Looks like they cost $200 (item 4.1).
<P>Bad command line area with virtually no editing in it.
<P>Changed zoom interface.
<P>No .xyz filters.
<P>Keyboard focus moves to buttons in menu area. You have to click in the
command area after using a button before you can type another command.
<P>"U" doesn't undo the last line segment while drawing lines.
<P>"Undo" requires setting a mark.
<P>No tooltips.
<P>No coords display.
<P>No coords display.
<P>I know AutoCAD very well, but still, I have to read the documentation :-0.
<P>Print only to a bitmap. And who wants to print to a microsoft print server?
Another $100 (item 1) for printing. There is no postscript printing at all.
<P>No cut, copy and paste between multiple instances of the program.
<P>You can't edit with only the keyboard.
<h3><U>Some Techy Details</U></h3>
<P>I'm not sure what toolkit was used. Ldd linuxcad reveals the following on my
system:
<PRE>
libXt.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libXt.so.6 (0x4000b000)
libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x4004d000)
libXext.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libXext.so.6 (0x400e3000)
libg++.so.27 => /usr/lib/libg++.so.27 (0x400ed000)
libm.so.5 => /lib/libm.so.5 (0x40121000)
libc.so.5 => /lib/libc.so.5 (0x4012a000)
libSM.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libSM.so.6 (0x401e6000)
libICE.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libICE.so.6 (0x401ef000)
libstdc++.so.27 => /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.27 (0x40203000)
</PRE>
<P>Searching the executable doesn't help, either. Searching with
<PRE>
$ strings linuxcad | grep -i copy
</PRE>
<P>only finds a couple Software Forge copyright strings (and the word "copy" a
bunch).
<P>Multiple instances run fine.
<PRE>
$ ps -m 3638 3636 # shows the memory usage:
PID TTY MAJFLT MINFLT TRS DRS SIZE SWAP RSS SHRD LIB DT COMMAND
3638 p6 383 195 1080 1920 3000 0 3000 2176 0 206 linuxcad cab1.dxs
3636 p6 425 200 1140 1976 3116 0 3116 2288 0 207 linuxcad test.dxs
</PRE>
<P>Startup time is about 2 seconds each on P100/48 Meg. system.
<P>Here's a link to a listing of a blank drawing file, <A HREF=cab1.html>cab1.dxs</A>
<h3><u>Licensing</u></h3>
<P>The license is very restrictive. It's the basic single machine/single user
license. I'm not sure I can even include quotes from the documentation, the
way license.txt is written. It says I can't reproduce or distribute or even
revise the documentation. Does that mean if I removed some of the double
spacing or add notes through out the documentation that I am in violation of
it? In any case, I won't publish the license here. The high points:
<UL>
<LI> Install on a single computer for "your own individual use". Can my wife
and children use it?
<LI>You can make one copy for archival purposes.
<LI>The program can be transferred. Standard boiler plate. You can't keep a copy.
<LI>Software Forge is not liable for anything that goes wrong or any damage that the
program does to you, your computer or your mother.
<LI>It says there is some welcome screen with a copyright notice, but that is wrong;
there is no startup message (and it should stay that way unless it is a window
that pops up and then goes away once the program starts).
<LI>The user's guide specifically calls out that it cannot be released under the
GPL, which I think is kind-of a strange detail to add.
<LI>You can't reverse engineer the program.
<LI>If you violate the license, they'll try and throw you in jail.
</UL>
<h3><u>Conclusions</u></h3>
<P>First, I should include this quote (double spaced and all) from the
linuxcad.txt document included in the distribution:
<PRE>
" ATTENTION:
This product is still very fresh and is under development , it may
crash from time to time , do save often and please report all crash situations
to Software Forge Inc. by e-mail to: unixguy@aol.com
We add new features quickly and your input about what features you want is
valuable. "
</PRE>
<P>So make a demo available and send an announcement to cola everytime it is
upgraded. Heck, this is the demo version.
<P>So far, only the one crash I wrote about above. But this is not a $775
package. In its current state, it is not a $75 package, even with everything
thrown in.
<P>Upgrades are available for only six months. And this is by no means an
exhaustive list of missing features. Just what I found real quick.
<P>I'd suggest waiting.
<P>I now must get NT working first thing Monday morning. I still don't have a cad
package to do my work in Linux and then take it to acad to make a final drawing.
I'm still stuck using microsoft. :-(
<HR>
<P> <small>
This document is copyright Robert Wuest, PE.<BR>
It is herby released into the public domain.<BR>
(except those portions copyright Software Forge, Inc.)</small>
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright © 1998, Robert Wuest <BR>
Published in Issue 30 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, July 1998</H5></center>
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