(Off-topic) Software Information: "AutoCad for linux"

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Am Sun, 7. January 2007 21:02 schrieb Daniel Cyt:
Hi Daniel,
> This is my first post at this list!
> I'm installing UBUNTU for my uncle, who is leaving windows for the first
> time.
> He is an architect and he wants to know if there is any  good FOSS option
> for replacing autocad.
>
> I've been googling around but I would like to know if somebody has any
> experience using any computer aided design FOSS.
>
> Thanks everybody

In the moment there is no mature CAD Software offered under a free licence 
which may be seen close to ACAD and others.

Some years ago there was Bentley Microstation for Linux but Bentley Systems 
stoped development. This is also for some other CAD environments/programms, 
e.g. precission engineer, pro-engineer, catia and so on.

I have to say that I only used CAD Systems for mecanical / precission 
engineering design not for architecture. But I may mention two candidates 
which may fit your uncles needs. Both use ACAD's file format or are able to 
import it.

But there are a few CAD tools which are not too expensive and very powerfull.

1st VariCAD [1], a very fast and powerfull 2D/3D (Volume-modeller) CAD tool. 
(ca 400,-EUR) Varicad is damned fast, I compared it with ACAD on a complex 
precission engineering project and it was a lot faster than ACAD on the same 
machine. I was able to use a lot of ACAD mechanical (part) libraries in 
VariCAD. So I would think that there is a good chance that this will work for 
architecture too. 
There is a trial version available so I would say give it a chance.
Btw. VariCAD uses ACAD's file format. 

And a more expensive one (from 1599,-EUR to 1900,-EUR) ARCAD [2], which is a 
3D modeller for architecture.

[1] http://www.varicad.org/
[2] http://www.lx-office.com/LX/products/architektur/index.html

regards,
thomas