Manjaro fan club here. I came to it from Pine64 and Raspberry Pi hardware.
But CAD is one of my favourite pastimes. I use Varicad (paid) and Qcad (paid) versions on this Linux Mageia platform. It would be nice to use these on Manjaro. Is anyone producing CAD drawings from your Manjaro system? I came across a flatpack for FreeCAD which looks interesting, but I also see problems with people using Flatpack package manager. So not sure about attempting that. Is anyone running there CAD from a Virtual Machine inside Manjaro? Does it work? If your CAD runs on Fedora or Opensuse it may be possible to use it in a VM.
Available in manjaro repo link
Varicad-view is in aur Just enable aur in pamac.
So you should be able to install it from pamac gui software installer in manjaro x86. Freecad have always been there im repo.
Good luck.
While you may find some CAD apps which works on Arch based distributions due the rolling package model - there is no guarantee it will keep working in a stable manner.
Like most software which is used in production enviroments you should carefully consider the vendor’s supported platform as your working platform.
Experimenting with the platform for your - possbibly - source of income is - sorry for being blunt here - foolish at best.
Yeah, Flatpak or Snap is probably better for stability because it comes with isolated dependencies.
For general system stability you need to take the necessary precautions.
I was using FreeCAD and compiled it, ran well. That being said it’s not really commercial level. It can be quite finicky and has lots of limitations. Some operations that might take a professional CAD program like 2 steps can seem to take 15 steps in FreeCAD. Also, sometimes I would break my models in ways undo could not go back.
It’s doable, but you pay a hard development price.
I was using it for making 3D models for furniture design for woodworking. I think lots of the modules are more for mechanical engineering, but we use NX at my workplace, and it is quite painful doing serious design in it.
I’m not throwing shade on it at all, for a FOSS package it is astounding how far it has come, and I’d love to see it get close enough for small business adoption.
Yes. I guess I am breaking the rules somewhat. Maybe I am asking too much of Manjaro.
Does it use btrfs and enable rollback?
In this log I have downloaded Qcad Trial and attempt to install it. The installer worked but not as user. Thus Qcad will only run as root. Hmm. Darn. In addition I mainly use the bash prompt - a liability with this install.
~ sudo qcad 127 ✘
sudo: qcad: command not found
~ cd root 1 ✘
cd: no such file or directory: root
~ cd /root 1 ✘
cd: permission denied: /root
~ sudo cd /root 1 ✘
sudo: cd: command not found
sudo: "cd" is a shell built-in command, it cannot be run directly.
sudo: the -s option may be used to run a privileged shell.
sudo: the -D option may be used to run a command in a specific directory.
~ su 1 ✘
[manjaro manjaro]# cd /root
[manjaro ~]# ls -la
total 13
drwxr-x--- 1 root root 180 Feb 18 08:58 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 160 Feb 18 01:52 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 21 Feb 18 01:52 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 57 Feb 18 01:52 .bash_profile
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3824 Feb 18 01:52 .bashrc
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 60 Feb 18 01:52 .cache
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 240 Feb 13 06:00 .config
drwx------ 2 root root 60 Feb 18 08:58 Desktop
drwx------ 3 root root 29 Feb 13 05:49 .gnupg
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 60 Feb 18 08:58 opt
drwx------ 2 root root 3 Feb 13 05:49 .ssh
-rw-r----- 1 root root 293 Jan 24 19:43 .zshrc
[manjaro ~]# cd opt
[manjaro opt]# ls
qcad-3.27.9-trial-linux-x86_64
[manjaro opt]# ./qcad-3.27.9-trial-linux-x86_64/
bash: ./qcad-3.27.9-trial-linux-x86_64/: Is a directory
[manjaro opt]# cd qcad-3.27.9-trial-linux-x86_64/
[manjaro qcad-3.27.9-trial-linux-x86_64]# ls
adinit.dat dwgexplode lgpl.txt libpdfium.so libqcadstemmer.so libQt5PrintSupport.so.5 libQt5Xml.so.5 platforminputcontexts revision.txt
bbox dwghatch libicudata.so.56 libqcadcore.so libqgsttools_p.so libQt5Script.so.5 libraries platforms Ribbonsoft-qcad.desktop
cc-by-3.0.txt dwghatcharea libicui18n.so.56 libqcadecmaapi.so libQt5CLucene.so.5 libQt5ScriptTools.so.5 libspatialindexnavel.so plugins scripts
dwg2bmp dwginfo libicuio.so.56 libqcadentity.so libQt5Concurrent.so.5 libQt5Sql.so.5 LICENSE.txt proj.db svg2dwg
dwg2csv dwgmapconvert libicule.so.56 libqcadgrid.so libQt5Core.so.5 libQt5Svg.so.5 linetypes qcad themes
dwg2dwg examples libiculx.so.56 libqcadgui.so libQt5DBus.so.5 libQt5Widgets.so.5 merge qcad-bin ts
dwg2maptiles fonts libicutest.so.56 libqcadoperations.so libQt5Gui.so.5 libQt5X11Extras.so.5 mimetype.png qcad_icon.png uninstall
dwg2pdf gpl-3.0-exceptions.txt libicutu.so.56 libqcadsnap.so libQt5Help.so.5 libQt5XcbQpa.so.5 patterns qcad-mimetypes.xml xcbglintegrations
dwg2svg gpl-3.0.txt libicuuc.so.56 libqcadspatialindex.so libQt5Network.so.5 libQt5XmlPatterns.so.5 pdf2dwg readme.txt xdg
[manjaro qcad-3.27.9-trial-linux-x86_64]# qcad <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< HERE I TRY TO RUN.
bash: qcad: command not found
[manjaro qcad-3.27.9-trial-linux-x86_64]# .qcad
bash: .qcad: command not found
[manjaro qcad-3.27.9-trial-linux-x86_64]# ./qcad
QCAD version 3.27.9
09:07:54: Debug: loading plugins...
09:07:54: Debug: RDwgPlugin::init: trial
09:07:54: Debug: RProScriptsPlugin::init: trial
09:07:54: Debug: RTracePlugin::init: trial
09:07:54: Debug: loading static plugins...
09:07:54: Debug: Renaming old unversioned config file from '/root/.config/QCAD/QCAD3.conf' to '/root/.config/QCAD/QCAD3_old.conf'
09:08:14: Debug: loading plugins...
09:08:14: Debug: loading static plugins...
09:08:14: Debug: loading plugins...
09:08:14: Debug: loading static plugins...
09:08:15: Debug: loading plugins...
09:08:15: Debug: loading static plugins...
… and Qcad starts in its root directory…
Moderator edit: In the future, please use proper formatting: [HowTo] Post command output and file content as formatted text
Arch based distributions is not compatible with debian or redhat based distributions.
At least not when it comes to package installation and the accompanying libraries.
The library versions required by any given applications may not be available on Manjaro or they are newer - in which case you may experience weird behavior of the application in question.
In most cases you cannot rely on the app vendor’s install script - and you shouldn’t as Manjaro uses pacman to keep track of system files.
If system files are manually - or using 3rd party installer - copied to system dirs you will likely run into problems at a later stage. The problems will manifest in messages about one or more files already existing in the filesystem.
Install qcad from the repo - it will work much better 
sudo pacman -Syu qcad
there is a varicad-view package in AUR
pamac build varicad-view
Sorry about that last post - I was getting technical which is not the purpose of this list.
Thanks for you suggestions. Some hidden dangers await the newbie (to Manjaro) trying to run third party applications. I need to focus on something that offers stability. Upgrades can then happen while without jumping through hoops. Bye for now.
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