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While likely not as widely used as Adobe, until mechanical CAD software like Solidworks, Inventor, or PTC Creo support Linux I won't be making a full switch any

While likely not as widely used as Adobe, until mechanical CAD software like Solidworks, Inventor, or PTC Creo support Linux I won't be making a full switch any time soon. There are a few offerings lacking in features and I guess you can do some FEA with Nastran, but there is no comparison to these Windows only suites. And while Steam is supported, the Linux library is a shadow of the Windows library even if you exclude older, underplayed games.

ekianjo 10y ago
> And while Steam is supported, the Linux library is a shadow of the Windows library even if you exclude older, underplayed games. True, but you can't expect things to change from one day to the next. There are many more games on Linux now than there were like 3 years ago. Like 2000 more. And it's still growing, and in 2016 we have got more AAA titles than ever mostly thanks to Feral Interactive's porting efforts. It's better and better for Linux gamers. And even AMD is slowly fixing its broken Linux drivers.
- seanp2k2 10y ago
  A lot of this seems like problems with the graphics sub-systems. It's getting better, but nvidia still doesn't have open-source drivers, and graphics switching still doesn't work (nor does power management). By "doesn't work" I mean that as someone with >10 years *nix sysadmin experience, I couldn't get everything to work right on Ubuntu 16.10 on a Dell XPS 9550 in a week of downtime effort (probably around 10 hours total). If NVidia, Intel, and AMD got serious about Linux graphics support for enthusiasts and professionals, I'm sure we'd see a huge improvement and make switching viable for many traditional hold-outs. Chicken and egg, unfortunately.
  - KaiserPro 10y ago
    Nvidia are serious about graphics for professionals. The linux driver is fast and continuously updated. I have deployed thousands of workstations with various ranges of graphics cards. Nvidia is the simplest, a trailing second is AMD (they do make rolling RPMs easy though) They are just as buggy as the windows drivers. Intel make brilliant drivers now, its just a shame the graphics cards are tiny compared to AMD/Nvidia. Nvidia just don't do opensource drivers. For me, I frankly couldn't give a fig if they are open source or not, just so long as it works.
  - ekianjo 10y ago
    > but nvidia still doesn't have open-source drivers They dont have any open source drivers for ANY platform. So that's the same on Windows and Mac. On Linux you have the Nouveau (open source, independent) drivers for nVidia though, and you can already play some games with it despite major performance loss. As for graphics switching you'll be happy to know this is a problem that the SOLUS distro is going to tackle in 2017 to have a better solution than the existing ones which are mostly broken.
- jwagenet 10y ago
  I agree. There is simply a lot of inertia on Windows heavy game development. Unfortunately, Windows will be needed for a long time for classic titles that probably wont be officially ported. Browsing through the list of top played Linux titles I am surprised by the many games I own that have since been ported, but I still see mostly indie titles. Until the really 'AAA' devs like Activision, EA, Ubisoft make changes I don't anticipate a n OS shift for the enthusiast crowd.
  - ekianjo 10y ago
    > Unfortunately, Windows will be needed for a long time for classic titles that probably wont be officially ported. I don't think that is necessarily true. WINE does a wonderful job nowadays to run older games - while the support for DX11 is still very much work in progress. Most DX9 games run just fine, and older versions of DX have little to no issues either. IN some cases WINE does a better job running an older Windows game than Windows 10.
- hedora 10y ago
  For the first time ever, I bought an AMD card. The open source drivers are miles ahead of the nvidia open source and binary drivers (at least with my old GTX 570 that used to work flawlessly, but now has tons of visual corruption). The "TearFree" xorg feature does the best job of vsync I have seen in a long time. On the downside, the variable refresh rate stuff hasn't quite landed in mainline yet, and audio over display port hasn't either. holding breath
daveguy 10y ago
> CAD software like Solidworks, Inventor, PTC Creo, etc... This is why I still have windows machines for work. If open source CAD software were competitive (or if the commercial companies offered Linux ports) I would be 100% linux.
kagamine 10y ago
Is Steam supported? Steam is in the Ubuntu repos and available for download, but it seems like it's impossible to install for thousands of Linux users and this has been the case for 4 years. The problem seems to either be that it wants 32bit libraries that 64 bit linux does not include (and the problem is impossible to fix, I have tried) or that Steam wants a different GPU driver to the one you have installed (why a browser and installer need a particular GPU driver idk). At this stage in Steam use on Linux, I would say it exists, but it does not appear "supported" by Valve.
- perakojotgenije 10y ago
  Well, as a linux (latest linux mint, 64 bit) steam user for more than two years I can tell you it is pretty much supported.
  - kagamine 10y ago
    I had it working on 14.x but cannot get it to start on 16.4 after hours of trying. Just because it works for you...
- babuskov 10y ago
  Steam it fully supported. I run it on Ubuntu 16.04 and 14.04 without any problems. Just run it like this: env LD_PRELOAD='/usr/$LIB/libstdc++.so.6' steam I have no idea why Valve doesn't make that command the default.
  - kagamine 10y ago
    I have tried that and many other solutions and forums are still piling up with hacks to get the steam client to work on 16.04 and as far back as 14.x.
    - babuskov 10y ago
      Just tried on fresh 16.04 install. Works out of the box. Make sure you download Steam from official website, not the version packaged with the distro.

ekianjo 10y ago

> And while Steam is supported, the Linux library is a shadow of the Windows library even if you exclude older, underplayed games. True, but you can't expect things to change from one day to the next. There are many more games on Linux now than there were like 3 years ago. Like 2000 more. And it's still growing, and in 2016 we have got more AAA titles than ever mostly thanks to Feral Interactive's porting efforts. It's better and better for Linux gamers. And even AMD is slowly fixing its broken Linux drivers.

seanp2k2 10y ago
A lot of this seems like problems with the graphics sub-systems. It's getting better, but nvidia still doesn't have open-source drivers, and graphics switching still doesn't work (nor does power management). By "doesn't work" I mean that as someone with >10 years *nix sysadmin experience, I couldn't get everything to work right on Ubuntu 16.10 on a Dell XPS 9550 in a week of downtime effort (probably around 10 hours total). If NVidia, Intel, and AMD got serious about Linux graphics support for enthusiasts and professionals, I'm sure we'd see a huge improvement and make switching viable for many traditional hold-outs. Chicken and egg, unfortunately.
- KaiserPro 10y ago
  Nvidia are serious about graphics for professionals. The linux driver is fast and continuously updated. I have deployed thousands of workstations with various ranges of graphics cards. Nvidia is the simplest, a trailing second is AMD (they do make rolling RPMs easy though) They are just as buggy as the windows drivers. Intel make brilliant drivers now, its just a shame the graphics cards are tiny compared to AMD/Nvidia. Nvidia just don't do opensource drivers. For me, I frankly couldn't give a fig if they are open source or not, just so long as it works.
- ekianjo 10y ago
  > but nvidia still doesn't have open-source drivers They dont have any open source drivers for ANY platform. So that's the same on Windows and Mac. On Linux you have the Nouveau (open source, independent) drivers for nVidia though, and you can already play some games with it despite major performance loss. As for graphics switching you'll be happy to know this is a problem that the SOLUS distro is going to tackle in 2017 to have a better solution than the existing ones which are mostly broken.
jwagenet 10y ago
I agree. There is simply a lot of inertia on Windows heavy game development. Unfortunately, Windows will be needed for a long time for classic titles that probably wont be officially ported. Browsing through the list of top played Linux titles I am surprised by the many games I own that have since been ported, but I still see mostly indie titles. Until the really 'AAA' devs like Activision, EA, Ubisoft make changes I don't anticipate a n OS shift for the enthusiast crowd.
- ekianjo 10y ago
  > Unfortunately, Windows will be needed for a long time for classic titles that probably wont be officially ported. I don't think that is necessarily true. WINE does a wonderful job nowadays to run older games - while the support for DX11 is still very much work in progress. Most DX9 games run just fine, and older versions of DX have little to no issues either. IN some cases WINE does a better job running an older Windows game than Windows 10.
hedora 10y ago
For the first time ever, I bought an AMD card. The open source drivers are miles ahead of the nvidia open source and binary drivers (at least with my old GTX 570 that used to work flawlessly, but now has tons of visual corruption). The "TearFree" xorg feature does the best job of vsync I have seen in a long time. On the downside, the variable refresh rate stuff hasn't quite landed in mainline yet, and audio over display port hasn't either. holding breath

daveguy 10y ago

> CAD software like Solidworks, Inventor, PTC Creo, etc... This is why I still have windows machines for work. If open source CAD software were competitive (or if the commercial companies offered Linux ports) I would be 100% linux.

kagamine 10y ago

Is Steam supported? Steam is in the Ubuntu repos and available for download, but it seems like it's impossible to install for thousands of Linux users and this has been the case for 4 years. The problem seems to either be that it wants 32bit libraries that 64 bit linux does not include (and the problem is impossible to fix, I have tried) or that Steam wants a different GPU driver to the one you have installed (why a browser and installer need a particular GPU driver idk). At this stage in Steam use on Linux, I would say it exists, but it does not appear "supported" by Valve.

perakojotgenije 10y ago
Well, as a linux (latest linux mint, 64 bit) steam user for more than two years I can tell you it is pretty much supported.
- kagamine 10y ago
  I had it working on 14.x but cannot get it to start on 16.4 after hours of trying. Just because it works for you...
babuskov 10y ago
Steam it fully supported. I run it on Ubuntu 16.04 and 14.04 without any problems. Just run it like this: env LD_PRELOAD='/usr/$LIB/libstdc++.so.6' steam I have no idea why Valve doesn't make that command the default.
- kagamine 10y ago
  I have tried that and many other solutions and forums are still piling up with hacks to get the steam client to work on 16.04 and as far back as 14.x.
  - babuskov 10y ago
    Just tried on fresh 16.04 install. Works out of the box. Make sure you download Steam from official website, not the version packaged with the distro.