• ExtremeDullard@piefed.socialEnglish
    6·
    11 days ago

    This is my Sway desktop. Nothing fancy, but it does what I need it to do, which is look like i3 on my non-Wayland machines 🙂

    Sway desktop

    • Dadifer
      3·
      10 days ago

      How is FreeCAD to use compared to SolidWorks?

      • ExtremeDullard@piefed.socialEnglish
        8·
        10 days ago

        I used SolidWorks professionally in 2008. FreeCAD in 2026 is nowhere near as good as SolidWorks was in 2008. But for what I use it for today, it’s plenty good enough. And it has three things SolidWorks doesn’t have:

        • It’s free as in libre
        • It’s free as in beer
        • It’s not a fucking cloud app

        That makes putting up with FreeCAD’s idiosyncrasies totally worth it to me.

        • Dadifer
          2·
          10 days ago

          I really want something reliable for Linux. I only do mechanical stuff; I don’t need all the complicated electronics and flow evaluation.

          • ExtremeDullard@piefed.socialEnglish
            5·
            10 days ago

            You can create fairly complex parts. Hell, I designed the 3D-printed glasses I wear and accessories in FreeCAD 🙂

            What it’s really not terribly good at is assemblies. If you need assemblies and simulating moving several parts together seamlessly, look elsewhere.

            Another CAD solution you may want to look at is OpenSCAD: it’s really nice if you like the programmer approach - i.e. you design the part by typing the parametric sequence to create it in a text file. It’s great for parts that need to be configured with parameters. But it’s all kinds of awful for anything curvy, and it doesn’t do assemblies.