Should be some Photoshop Plug-Ins for Gimp.... SEE THIS

Alright, it's good, but it takes me large base of photoshop plugins, i can't see it could open PSD file in gimp properly...

As a business we would like AutoCad ported to some form of Linux base as this is the only propriatory programme preventing us dumping Microsoft
There is a more important issue here in that there is a real need for a stable office PC environment that does not change at the current rate of change. we forsee a future case with no commercial provide of office based software
Best regards
Dave

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what about solidworks?
http://www.solidworks.com/sw/support/downloads.htm

AFAIK

1. Solidworks is not an AutoCAD replacement, it is similar to Inventor and Pro-E/CREO.

2. Don't know what your link is for, as I didn't want to sign in, but the system requirements for Solidworks REQUIRE Windows and IE as well as Windows servers...... SYS REQ SW

Must you use AutoCAD? I listed options that work on Linux in post #5020

I would just dual boot then.

a 2d version
http://www.3ds.com/products/draftsig...ad-draftsight/

Or even just a Virtual Machine: http://www.blog.arun-prabha.com/2007...box-in-ubuntu/

Especially as it's only one or two programs you need to run in Windows.

With all due respect, that link is over 6 years old. Installing VirtualBox isn't half as hard to install as explained in that blog. I do agree with the recommendation to install a VM for irreplaceable Windows programs, it might scare away users from VB.

jlinkels

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Yep, you're correct. Sorry - I was looking for a tut showing how to install a windows client-OS onto an ubuntu Host. Strangely there's a lot of tuts showing it the other way round. But once you've installed VirtualBox (or whatever other virtualization software you prefer) the installation steps for the Client-OS(s) are the same no matter what HostOS you're running.

Perhaps a slightly newer tut (this guy is installing Ubuntu on OSX, though you'll see in his video he's got lots of other Clients already installed - including Win7): http://ryantrotz.com/2011/11/virtual...nner-tutorial/

For more advanced tuts the VB Wiki has lots of info: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/User_HOWTOS

Even how to convert a dual-booting WinXP into a ClientOS to be run through VB.

What do you mean it doesn't open PSDs "properly"? Gimp opens and saves them without trouble. There's only 2 things where Gimp and PS are not compatible: Shadows on layers and text. That is because Gimp do these things in a different way than PS does, e.g. opening a PSD file with some artistic text in it would convert the layer of text into a raster layer in Gimp.

To me the text thing isn't any issue as PS (and Gimp) are definitely not meant for text anyway, I would use nearly anything else to place text onto images in preference. The shadowing thing is a bit irritating, but still - a single instruction to fix shadows onto a layer again.

I can't re-iterate this more: For 90% of everything AutoCAD (Vanilla, i.e. not a vertical) can do, BricsCAD is sufficient. I'd go as far as to say: "If you can get by using AutoCAD LT, the BricsCAD is too much for you. If you use AutoCAD as an advanced user, chances are that BricsCAD is probably all you need. If you're using strange addons or a vertical, then BC might be a bit of a problem." To date it's the closest match of AutoCAD which I've found to work properly on Linux, and no I'm not affiliated to them or any other CAD software.

Go try it, you can download a 30 day trial. After which the license is cheaper than AutoCAD LT. https://www.bricsys.com/en_INTL/

I'm not too sure I understand what you mean by "stable office PC environment".

If you mean it should not change the user experience of the program(s): Most open source programs tend to have updates even more often than something like Windows. Though very seldom do those updates / upgrades alter the program's actual working by much. Unlike things like Revit changing it's UI's ribbon arrangement 4 times in 4 years, necessitating a re-learning on each upgrade. And this goes for Linux as well, though there you can choose to be on the bleeding edge with something like Fedora, or you could choose to go with a long-term-release version: anything from Ubuntu LTS to buying a RedHat RHEL version.

If you mean the PC shouldn't crash all the time, you can find numerous examples from a google search showing just how much more stable any Linux installation is in comparison to Windows. It's one of the reasons why most web servers run on Linux instead of Windows.

Well, for most of my needs I already live in that world: Linux, Libre Office & Thunderbird solves 99% of all people’s software needs. And even for most of the other stuff something is available. You can do nearly anything using only open source programs.

Thanks for all your offers of help, consolidated response:
We are a advanced ACAD user therefore ACAD LT is equivalent to etch a sketch for us and no use.
We know solid works but it won't port ACAD models and all of our clients are ACAD so ruled that out. We have solid works in one of our other offices.
Tried various versions of virtual machines, ACAD does not like working through a letterbox and becomes extremely unstable to the point of unusable
ACAD say they will produce a linux version but it is allways "coming"
ACAD seems to be very sensitive to chipset architechture of the host machine and will not run at our level of use on anything less than max spec
By long term office solution I mean an OS and ofice bundle that is stable for,say 10 years. LTS in software developers terms is 2 years.
There is/are two distinct sectors in a mature software environment, the "OOh shiney" of the "wow" generation and a business tool for ourselves. I am almost arguing for a Unix system that fits a PC architechture to replace MS Back office. We are an SME with large corporation IT demands and are therefore unusual. We fall between the majority of business users and someone like a mutlinational corporation. There are corporate IT solutions but they neither fit our size nor can we afford them. We believe there must be others across the globe that are in our position who could do with a niche robust IT intensive solution
Over to you
Thanks
Dave

You can get 10 years from Red Hat (and I think Suse), 7years from CentOS/SL, 5 years from Ubuntu and about 5 years from Slackware.

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