HOW TO INSTALL FREECAD OPEN SOURCE CAD SOFTWARE IN UBUNTU 16.04 – A SIMPLE CAD PROGRAM FOR LINUX

Introduction

In this article we are going to learn How to install Freecad open source cad software in Ubuntu 16.04. Freecad is a simple cad program, an alternative application of Autocad used to design 3D model objects. It supports so many formats for 3D modeling i.e. CAD, CAx, MCAD, PLM and many more. This application is mainly useful for Mechanical Engineer’s, Architecture’s and so on.

Freecad simple cad program was initially developed by Werner Mayer, Jürgen Riegel, Yorik van Havre on year 2002 using Python & C++ programming language and released under LGPLv2+. It’s an nice light weight application comes with various features mentioned below :

• Freecad open source cad software is a cross platform application comes for major operating systems i.e. Linux, Microsoft Windows, MacOS.
• This application is a highly customizable and comes with advance design features.
• Supports so many other 3D modeling file formats like STL, TEP, DXF, IGES, DAE, SVG, IFC. all these file formats can be open and edit using FreeCAD simple cad program.
• There are so many tools are available in Freecad open source cad software to design the models which are grouped by workbenches and shows only those tools which are usable for current task. This helps the application to load fast and perform better.
• FreeCAD is designed based on Qt Framework which helps to render the 3D scenes fast.
• Freecad simple cad program comes with so many topological components which are designed using Python Scripting i.e. planes, Vertices, Wire and many more.

For more features & information’s on Freecad open source cad software you can visit the official website Here!

Follow the below steps to install Freecad open source cad software in Ubuntu 16.04 – A Simple cad program for Linux

Before start the installation of Freecad open source cad software let’s update the packages & repositories of Ubuntu 16.04 using below command.

elinuxbook@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get update   # Update Packages & Repositories
Hit:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial InRelease                   
Get:2 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security InRelease [102 kB]   
Get:3 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates InRelease [102 kB]
Get:4 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-backports InRelease [102 kB]
Fetched 306 kB in 2s (125 kB/s)   
Reading package lists... Done

After update the Packages & Repositories now we are ready to FreeCAD simple cad program. To install so we don’t have to install any 3rd party PPA repository as it’s a part of default repository of Ubuntu 16.04. So to install the same use the below command.

elinuxbook@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get install freecad   # Install Freecad open source cad software
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  blt fonts-lyx javascript-common libblas-common libblas3 libboost-program-options1.58.0 libboost-regex1.58.0 libboost-signals1.58.0 libcoin80v5 libfreeimage3
  libgfortran3 libgl2ps0 libglade2-0 libjs-jquery libjs-jquery-ui libjs-sphinxdoc libjs-underscore libjxr0 liblapack3 liboce-foundation10 liboce-modeling10
  liboce-ocaf-lite10 liboce-ocaf10 liboce-visualization10 libopenjp2-7 libphonon4 libpyside1.2 libqt4-designer libqt4-help libqt4-opengl libqt4-scripttools libqt4-svg
.
.
0 upgraded, 88 newly installed, 0 to remove and 189 not upgraded.
Need to get 74.1 MB of archives.
After this operation, 312 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y ---> Enter 'y' to continue the installation

As you can see above we have successfully installed the Freecad open source cad software. To confirm the same refer the below command.

elinuxbook@ubuntu:~$ sudo dpkg -l freecad   # Confirm the installed Package
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                                 Version                 Architecture            Description
+++-====================================-=======================-=======================-=============================================================================
ii  freecad                              0.15.4671+dfsg1-4       amd64                   Extensible Open Source CAx program (alpha)

Now to open the application just type the command freecad on shell prompt. Refer the command below.

elinuxbook@ubuntu:~$ freecad   # Open the Freecad simple cad program

FreeCAD application version :

You can also open the Freecad open source cad software graphically using Search your computer box. Refer the snapshot below.

To uninstall the application use the below command.

elinuxbook@ubuntu:~$ sudo dpkg -r freecad   # Uninstall the Freecad simple cad program
(Reading database ... 212377 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing freecad (0.15.4671+dfsg1-4) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.5-1) ...
Processing triggers for shared-mime-info (1.5-2ubuntu0.1) ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.13.3-6ubuntu3.1) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.22-1ubuntu5) ...
Processing triggers for bamfdaemon (0.5.3~bzr0+16.04.20160824-0ubuntu1) ...
Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf-2.index...
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.59ubuntu1) ...

This is how we can install Freecad open source cad software in Ubuntu 16.04 – A simple CAD program for Linux. If you found this article useful then Like us, Share this post on your preferred Social media, Subscribe our Newsletter OR if you have something to say then feel free to comment on the comment box below.