SketchUp and Rubies on Linux (yes, it works)

michelinux · 6 Jul 2008, 10:23

If you have a 64bit CPU (Intel or AMD, ubuntu 64 is for both) you can experience clear performance improvement from system boot speed to every application, particularly with applications that require a lot of RAM. Moreover it has been resolved the problem with non-64bit applications like adobe flash player and openoffice.

The space, but the time in order to test a system does not lack me, but I can test it to my friend's pc.

ciao
Mick

juju · 6 Jul 2008, 19:45

@lewiswadsworth said:

By the way, I'm told that if someone contacts Google SketchUp's support team with a question about SU on Linux now, they are directed to look at this thread!

Wow, seems like our pro licence money is hard at work.

lewiswadsworth · 6 Jul 2008, 19:52

@unknownuser said:

@lewiswadsworth said:

By the way, I'm told that if someone contacts Google SketchUp's support team with a question about SU on Linux now, they are directed to look at this thread!

Wow, seems like our pro licence money is hard at work.

No, they're just being nice. First they tell you that they simple don't have the resources to make SU available on major Linux distros, but if you insist on trying...

Actually, everything here works on the free SU as well. In fact, that is easier to install because it doesn't insist on a pointless download of .NET to run Layout (which doesn't work on Linux, because .NET has never been ported to Linux by Microsoft).

linea · 11 Jul 2008, 09:40

I have told various linux 3d purists on other forums about our thread here. Not one has shown any interest, they have all dismissed SU. They all seem to be loyal to Blender, wings 3d or k-3d. I hadn't heard of k-3d before, link below
http://www.k-3d.org/wiki/Main_Page

I was surprised they weren't more interested, or at least a little enthusiastic, with the exception of Blender, Sketchup seems to be streets ahead of any native linux 3d app.

lewiswadsworth · 11 Jul 2008, 12:33

I have heard of k-3d, and keep it on my machines. It'll will be great and fully functional for professional design purposes, at this rate, in about 13.5 years, by which time of course we will be absorbed by the Singularity (so who'll give a damn about 3D modeling then, anyway?).

By Linux purists, do you mean Stallman-type Open-Source advocates? The kind of people who insist upon using the awful version of Ubuntu (or worse, Debian) without any proprietary software at all? That's a religious stance they hold, and it's about as useful. And I have as about as much use for those who hold it as I do for any fundamentalists.

I actually don't care as much about Linux as I do about the interfaces of the various desktop managers, which are of course available on a variety of "engines" that matter very little to non-coders as long as they keep the interfaces running and apps cooking along. I've read of people getting SketchUp to run on BSD and OpenSolaris...more power to them.

Has anyone had more luck with SU-on-Wine-on-Linux on any particular desktop manager than with others? I have personally only tried it on plain-Jane GNOME, and it seems to be fine.

lewiswadsworth · 21 Jul 2008, 14:34

Thanks...that is very interesting. I downloaded a copy of Ubuntu 64 and I'll install it on a Core Duo computer sometime in a day or so and try this myself. Let us know about whether your SU 2D export problem persists on your friend's computer.

I've been working on a fairly large SU project recently (the one pictured above), and I have noticed that with increasing model complexity the general performance (modeling, screen redrawing, etc.) does seem to get worse faster on SU on Wine on Ubuntu 8.04LTS 32bit than it does on XP SP3 on the same hardware. But 2D and 3D exports seem to finish much, much faster on Ubuntu than they do on XP.

By the way, I'm told that if someone contacts Google SketchUp's support team with a question about SU on Linux now, they are directed to look at this thread!

lewiswadsworth · 21 Jul 2008, 17:29

@michelinux said:

If you have a 64bit CPU (Intel or AMD, ubuntu 64 is for both) you can experience clear performance improvement from system boot speed to every application, particularly with applications that require a lot of RAM. Moreover it has been resolved the problem with non-64bit applications like adobe flash player and openoffice.

The space, but the time in order to test a system does not lack me, but I can test it to my friend's pc.

ciao
Mick

Mick, I did test SU Pro on Ubuntu 8.04 AMD64 (on a computer where I also have it running on both XP and Ubuntu 32bit), and I was able to get the same range of image sizes for both PNG and JPEG exports as I can on Windows...an easy 4000 pixel max dimension. And (possibly because of an update recently to WINE) SU no longer required the Registry changes noted above to work immediately after install...it opened with some empty TOD, Instructor, and Learning Center windows, but these no longer aborted the program start.

However, it does seem like SU might be a little more likely to hang on Ubuntu 64. Launching Firefox at the same time as SU was open caused the SU window contents to disappear and the app to freeze at one point, although I haven't been able to duplicate that problem and it has been working since.

Incidentally, the newest update to WINE (they claim) should allow one to run a wider range of Windows graphical applications, most notably Photoshop CS3. That's pretty amazing...I'll have to test it.

--Lewis

linea · 1 Aug 2008, 13:51

There is talk of developing a free CS3 type app for linux, probably a derivative of gimp, inkscape etc.

lewiswadsworth · 1 Aug 2008, 14:43

I'm aware of that. It will be hard to catch up though. I use GIMP for a few things, and it has about the full functionality of PS 4.0, plus a few unusual capabilities if you download the plugins for animation. But with no smart objects, no adjustment layers, and no 3D, it's going to be a long haul to achieve PS CS3 XT equivalency. Krita has adjustment layers, but seemed to have other issues last time I checked...and I can't forever be checking to see if anyone has "caught up." It's always a catch-up game with Open-Source, and with few exceptions (at least in my areas of interest, mainly graphics) there's very little that's truly innovative.

That's not always bad, of course. It could be argued that even the GNOME desktop (which is what non-coders really find so compelling about Ubuntu, and often mistake forLinux) in so many of these OS is functionally equivalent to the old, no-frills pre-OS-X Apple desktop. KDE has attempted some innovation, on the other hand, but I'm not sure anyone really wants more elaborate desktop managers. Do we really need things like Compiz to be productive, anyway?

What actually led me to investigate the whole topic of SU on Linux was the complexity and increasing productivity-restriction of the two main commercial OS, Mac and Vista/Windows 7. I want a bolt-hole when Windows XP finally becomes unusable on modern hardware...open-source versus commercial software development is utterly irrelevant in my particular circumstances.

linea · 3 Aug 2008, 11:14

I kind of agree. I've got my old laptop up and running ubuntu now. It is a lean go anywhere machine(does't matter if I drop it) running free apps that can't do everything but at least give me a useable tool while I'm out about. Trying to get SU installed too, I'll let you know

As for a CS3 clone, I would imagine that Adobe's copyright clauses make it impossible to come anywhere close, but it'll be interesting to see what an open source attempt can create.

Jon

lewiswadsworth · 3 Aug 2008, 15:04

More SU on WINE on Ubuntu 64-bit notes:

I installed this again yesterday (had to wipe a partition...turns out that having 64bit and 32bit versions of Ubuntu on the same drive can be problematic) and tried to do some actual project work with SU once I had it going.

With another couple of minor WINE updates, SU now installs with no differences from the Windows installation process, as long as one allows WINE to install Gecko so that it can render HTML (used in the SU TOD window, for instance). Layout still doesn't work at all, although you must allow the Installer to pointlessly download .NET before it will continue with SU's installation.

There is a noticeable problem, once SU file sizes get a little bigger in this system: certain visual operations don't immediately appear on the screen. For instance, a zoom extents operation does not complete (or perhaps the window simply doesn't redraw) until one clicks somewhere in SU and begins another operation; the same sort of thing happens with hiding/unhiding objects. This can get a little tedious when editing groups and components...it is difficult to know, until you start another operation, whether a component/group is open for editing or not.

Also, 2D exports to DWG format failed about 50% of the time with a Bugsplat, although when they did work they were completed in about half the time it takes on Windows XP. Graphic exports to PNG and JPG complete much, much faster than they do on Windows...almost instantaneous with large resolutions (3000-4000 pixels) and shadows/anti-aliasing on.

eter · 6 Aug 2008, 19:28

Thanks to this thread I'm now running SketchUp on my Ubuntu partition. That Windows partition is suddenly looking a little superfluous.

Thanks for the instructions, although as Lewis observed, this is becoming more and more straightforward with newer releases of WINE.

lewiswadsworth · 6 Aug 2008, 19:53

?eter, are you experiencing the lag in hiding/showing/zooming that I noted in my previous post? It's only slightly annoying (much less annoying than trying to get dual monitors to run on Ubuntu), but I'm curious to know if anyone else has had the problem or had it and done something about it.

eter · 7 Aug 2008, 03:22

No trouble in zooming/hiding/showing that I've noticed yet, although I haven't worked on a really complex model. I'm running the 32 bit version because my home pachine is a P4. The one problem I did notice was that the tool windows wouldn't dock to each other when I moved them together-in fact they behaved pretty strangely all round- not collapsing when you clikc the title bar etc. But it certainly seems functional so far.

lewiswadsworth · 7 Aug 2008, 12:25

The toolbar problem seems to turn up on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Ubuntu. It would be interesting to know if it exists on WINE on other distros.

Scienthsine · 7 Aug 2008, 15:25

If other people don't have a problem with the view not refreshing from some things, then it's probley your video drivers... which is likely considering the shape the nvidia and ati drivers for linux are in atm.

However, this might be easily fixable. It sounds to me like it just doesn't refresh in some places where it should, and so you get no change until an action forces a refresh. It's unlikely that the operation is actually waiting, although I guess this could be possible if the events are somehow getting sent to sketchup late... but I don't think this is it.

So, we just need to try to force the view to refresh. Maybe one or a few of the observer classes can watch for changes, and invalidate the view? As a last resort we could launch a non-modal web dialog thing and have a javascript timeout that invalidates the view... but I think this would mean that we couldn't use another script with web-dialogs... right? (Haven't used one in my scripts yet, and haven't used anyone elses scripts either... but I assume that you can only have one running at a time?)

I might attempt to install via wine tonight, as I actually just reinstalled windows on a 10 gig drive a few weeks ago for sketchup... it's the only thing I boot windows for. (Well and starcraft... but if I can run sketchup under wine, I'll bite the bullet and run starcraft in wine also.)

[Edit] Also it could be wine in combination with a driver... anyway, we need to report it to wine and if it's not their problem, report it to your video driver people.

mozzie · 8 Aug 2008, 00:08

Another data point.
I understand that the SU install works for some NVidia graphics cards, but not for others?

Anyway, I thought I'd give it a go. I run SU on a WinXp laptop that's in hospital.
My other system is a Shuttle m/b with integrated/on-board Intel graphics chip (82865G Integrated Graphics Controller), Mandriva 2008.1, & Samsung 940bw monitor at 1440 x 900 - 24bpp.
X driver (Intel 810 and above),
Wine 1.1.2. I haven done any MS registration tho'.

SU Pro (licensed) installs successfully after making the registry changes and Gecko.
Icon appears on desktop. Launches fine EXCEPT the window is black - menus are fine and appear to work. If I draw lines/rectangles (even though I can't see them) SU appears to have done them, as it then wants to save on exit. So it appears to be a screen drawing problem?
Any suggestions?

lewiswadsworth · 8 Aug 2008, 02:33

That's the integrated graphics controller, I'm afraid. Bad or no OpenGL implementation on Linux. Sorry...it's the same result I get on an ATI graphics card on a Dell XPS notebook. But NVidia 7 and 8 series GeForces seem to work pretty well with this and later versions of WINE.

Sci,

@unknownuser said:

So, we just need to try to force the view to refresh. Maybe one or a few of the observer classes can watch for changes, and invalidate the view? As a last resort we could launch a non-modal web dialog thing and have a javascript timeout that invalidates the view... but I think this would mean that we couldn't use another script with web-dialogs... right? (Haven't used one in my scripts yet, and haven't used anyone elses scripts either... but I assume that you can only have one running at a time?)

Do I understand you...you are proposing a ruby script for forcing a redraw, called every few seconds or automatically at the end of certain commands? I suppose first step would be to know exactly what events are not followed by refreshes, and then find the classes that observe them.

Scienthsine · 8 Aug 2008, 04:13

Yep, exactly, it's hacky... but desperate times

That would be good, I have alot to do this weekend, so I haven't installed it on my linux drive yet... but I don't expect to have the same problem, having a radeon. We'll see...

lewiswadsworth · 8 Aug 2008, 13:10

I have yet to be able to get SU to work on WINE with a Radeon at all...it rarely even works well on Windows, after all, with ATI cards, and the tech support people in Boulder will confirm that. Please let me know if you figure it out.