alt Hacker NewsFreeCAD is really the only serious contender for CAD on Linux. I love how everything is hackable via Python APIs. Every release seems to fix more and more UX issues. I have very high hopes for it to eventually start attracting more commercial usage, much like KiCad and Blender did in their spaces. We need more open software like that.
Replies
Almost purely for amusement, I played around with letting Claude generate Python code for FreeCAD. I actually got a coherent part out of it, that I sent out for fabrication. The practical motivation is that my needs are extremely basic (plates, brackets, etc) but I have some physical issues that prevent me from using GUI based CAD directly.
>I love how everything is hackable via Python APIs.
It is hackable with languages other than Python too. The Python interpreter has no restrictions to access and execute everything it likes. Contrast this with Gimp, which it's Scheme interpreter cannot access anything except objects inside Gimp.
This opens some security hole risks in Freecad, given that plugins can execute arbitrary code in the user's machine, but that means one can write C, C++, Rust and automate the gui.
Freecad btw, very unfortunately, it loads each .so external library only once, and it will load the library only with different name or version number. I lost 5 hours messing up with Python versions and .venv installations till I figured that out.
You can run Solidworks or Onshape as well. The former via Wine, the latter in Chrome.