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Here is a pretty good list of CAD software available for Linux.

At home, I use Draftsight and FreeCAD. I had trouble with FreeCAD in the past, but it works quite well new. I tried gcad3d, but couldn't get used to it. I also used Cycas when I was designing a house, but it's a little different. Varicad is very nice, but it's too pricey for me.

Gimp has done colour management just fine for quite some time

Gimp isn't by itself a color-managed environment. While it has basic (working) color profiling support since 2.4, you'd still need your monitor to be calibrated, your DE and probably graphic card drivers to be colormanagement-aware (Gnome is, to some extent), have your printer to fully use ICC profiles (the same ones you use on Gimp for softproofing), and being aware of eventual limitations when buying professional monitors (I really don't know how well a Linux DE behaves with a 10-bit monitor). And yes, being able to calibrate it all using the usual tools.

Cinelerra has been used on professional big budget movies before, however if that doesn't float your boat the lightworks linux port is just about stable.

Please name one big-budget movie that was edited with Cinelerra. Have you actually ever tried to use it? I had, and it is so far behind the curve that is more of a fancy transcoding tool than a non-linear video editor. You probably would be better trying to do video editing with Windows Movie Maker than with Cinelerra.

Google is your friend.Linux is used in professional design environments you know. Can't vouch for autocad support but that is like asking for microsoft word support, not relating to the problem of creating documents or in this case designs.

Varicad seems more of an alternative to SolidWorks than to AutoCad. When you need to project buildings, it is nice to have all the schematics (mechanical, electrical, pipelining, etc) under the same format/program. Not to mention actual timesavers such as Revit or Autocad Architectural suite. And how bad for your job can it be when you reply to a multi-million building proposal with a document that may barf because someone isn't using AutoCad.

Or a word processor that won't barf when you are editing a 10,000 page document.

Maybe Latex works fine (I have very little experience with it), but does a Latex WYSWIG editor works well with that many pages? And how about database integration? I don't know if Word dies at 20k pages (never tried past 15k), but I've used some linux-compatible alternatives (such as OO) that won't even get close to that number.

Or a professional-grade multitrack sound editing software that actually take advantage of expensive hardware.

Jack itself isn't a Linux technology, as it can be run on other unixes and both Windows and OSX. And while Ardour is an excellent program (from the little that I've used it), and probably is a good alternative to Adobe Audition and casual ProTools users, if you have specialized hardware, you'll have driver problems. I actually don't care much for latency problems, but they seem to be a recurring issue with Linux kernel, so I'd be conservative when declaring it "fixed".

I'm sorry to inform you, there's no "engineering mindset" in using the wrong tool for the job. I call fiddling around system knobs and debugging drivers so the thing actually works just to not use a tried-and-true solution a waste of time, unless your job is actually engineering the system you're fiddling with. Shure, you can do everything I mentioned with Linux, given enough time, knowledge and patience. Maybe that makes sense for you, but I have actual work to do, so paying for a tool that will allow me to focus on my work and do it faster or effortlessly doesn't sound like a bad deal to me.

Show me a photo editor that runs on Linux on a color-managed environment.

Gimp has done colour management just fine for quite some time

Or a professional-grade video-editing suite that actually works

Cinelerra has been used on professional big budget movies before, however if that doesn't float your boat the lightworks linux port is just about stable.

Or a decent CAD suite (2D and 3D) with full AutoCad compatibility and plotter support.

Google is your friend.Linux is used in professional design environments you know. Can't vouch for autocad support but that is like asking for microsoft word support, not relating to the problem of creating documents or in this case designs.

Or a word processor that won't barf when you are editing a 10,000 page document.

Latex, as a side note, I haven't yet seen a version of microsoft word that doesn't die when you start hitting 20k+ pages.

Or a professional-grade multitrack sound editing software that actually take advantage of expensive hardware.

For mixing? Ardour. Everything is compartmentalized so you can have separate sequencers/synths/mixers etc. Personally I use rosegarden for sequencing, bristol/linuxsampler for synths and ardour for mixing and post processing. Jack is superior in this way to the audio systems that both os x and windows have, audio is just an arbitrary stream to the subsystem. Not to mention with modern kernels you can get far less latency.

Most of the problems you've given are solved problems, if you have an engineering mindset. Linux has always been by technical people for technical people, that might be changing now with more typical end users flocking there however the more you know the more you can do. Nothing will replace domain specific knowledge.

There are Unix CADs that you can buy, but they are all "wicked expensive" like Catia and UG/NX. And these packages do not have student editions, which is really stupid in my opinion. I use UG/NX at work.

Personally, for home use on Linux, I use VariCAD. It's about the same price as Photoshop. Be aware that it relies on the latest ATI drivers. It will run like poo on the open source driver.

It has a student license. http://www.varicad.com/en/home/products/students-&-universities/

For Windows and personal use/low budgets and if you don't need solid modeling, I've always been a big fan of TurboCAD, but this does not run in wine reliably. It's really a shame - I've used it since Windows 3.1. If you use Windows, I highly recommend it instead of pirating Autocad.

If you need 2D and want it for free, there's DraftSight from Dassault.

--
BMO

Linux may be free, but there's no truly viable MS Office alternative, nothing that matches Exchange, there's no professional level Photoshop, there's nothing to edit videos with, nor post processing, good luck doing complex audio work

Ardour, anyone? It has been around for quite a few years, and is a really great professional grade DAW/production system. Try googling before posting something quite that ridiculous.

If you are a creative professional -- Linux is completely worthless. Sorry, but it is. I wish that were not the case, but there's no professional-level creative apps for Linux.

I guess all those Xara users, Ardour users, Cinelerra users, MainActor users, Blender users, VariCad users, Jahshaka/CineFX users, etc, are completely boned.

Of all the programs available for Linux, few are of comparable quality to those available to Windows or OSX.

That's just stupid. There are programs of poor quality on all of the major operating systems. Linux has its share of badly put-together programs, but saying that "few" are of comparable quality simply illustrates that you don't spend very much time with Linux systems or just have very poor choice in software.

I disagree about the cad side of linux dying, and these folks would probably do the same.

"of CAD without having to use an unsupported intermediary (wine)."

If you haven't heard of VariCAD...

http://www.varicad.com/en/home/

It's not AutoCAD, but if you have a machine shop, or are adept with generic CAD tools...

Check out their demonstration...

http://www.varicad.com/en/home/products/demo-videos/

Another is CAD Schroer...

http://www.cad-schroer.com/

BOTH of these have Linux and Window's clients. Both are powerful, and both are out of my price range for full products, but CAD Schroer offers a free-use personal license.

If you've got Apple Computers, but need parametric capabilities and don't want to pay TONS of money you can check out Punch! ViaCAD:

http://www.punchcad.com/products/viacadpro.htm

They have a non-pro version (ViaCAD 2D/3D 6), for about $99, and also have decent range of architectural/residential CAD apps, too, with .exe and Universal Binaries. The 3D solids tools for ad-hoc and precision work are giddiness-inducing, at least for me.

And, if you need 3D Digital Prototyping...:

http://www.punchcad.com/index.htm

http://www.punchcad.com/index_pro.htm

http://www.punchcad.com/products/shark.htm

http://www.punchcad.com/products/sharkfx.htm

Now, if the Linux/Open Source community would seriously hit up ViaCAD and also IMSI:

http://www.turbocad.com/

http://www.imsisoft.com/Products/3DModelingCategory/tabid/470/Default.aspx

and IMPLORE them with real solid conversion opportunities, they *might* feel inclined to explore porting options, ESPECIALLY if business-minded programmers can induce them to look at QT/Trolltech and other technologies that might help them port or even rebuild their apps. But, for that to happen, we probably need to see a SIGNIFICANT curtailment or reduction of seats held by some major incumbents.

And, we need to get MORE

"of CAD without having to use an unsupported intermediary (wine)."

If you haven't heard of VariCAD...

http://www.varicad.com/en/home/

It's not AutoCAD, but if you have a machine shop, or are adept with generic CAD tools...

Check out their demonstration...

http://www.varicad.com/en/home/products/demo-videos/

Another is CAD Schroer...

http://www.cad-schroer.com/

BOTH of these have Linux and Window's clients. Both are powerful, and both are out of my price range for full products, but CAD Schroer offers a free-use personal license.

If you've got Apple Computers, but need parametric capabilities and don't want to pay TONS of money you can check out Punch! ViaCAD:

http://www.punchcad.com/products/viacadpro.htm

They have a non-pro version (ViaCAD 2D/3D 6), for about $99, and also have decent range of architectural/residential CAD apps, too, with .exe and Universal Binaries. The 3D solids tools for ad-hoc and precision work are giddiness-inducing, at least for me.

And, if you need 3D Digital Prototyping...:

http://www.punchcad.com/index.htm

http://www.punchcad.com/index_pro.htm

http://www.punchcad.com/products/shark.htm

http://www.punchcad.com/products/sharkfx.htm

Now, if the Linux/Open Source community would seriously hit up ViaCAD and also IMSI:

http://www.turbocad.com/

http://www.imsisoft.com/Products/3DModelingCategory/tabid/470/Default.aspx

and IMPLORE them with real solid conversion opportunities, they *might* feel inclined to explore porting options, ESPECIALLY if business-minded programmers can induce them to look at QT/Trolltech and other technologies that might help them port or even rebuild their apps. But, for that to happen, we probably need to see a SIGNIFICANT curtailment or reduction of seats held by some major incumbents.

And, we need to get MORE

No, i don't expect that this *alone* would level the playing field, but it would be yet one more "feature" to help lessen the grip of office on the market.

See, sometimes people get stress or decay or other data in spreadsheets. Maybe they can't *yet* or don't want to use MathCAD or other high-end (read "expensive") tools for initial estimations of structures. But, if they could do ad-hoc analysis (nothing formal, just ad-hoc) and be able to export it to CAD packages, it could possibly add another dynamic to client-side apps such as the various competing CAD packages and the few spreadsheet apps.

As an aside about how spreadsheet features enhancements might help those wanting to escape ms office.

But, i happen to use CAD and have to deal with various things, one among them (which i am not really skilled at) being counting and inventorying symbols on a drawing. I'd prefer to use an external database, not leave it totally up to the CAD software. Sure, the CAD SW can to a LOT, but when it comes to off-line analysis of symbols that are not only COUNTED but also have to be allocated to specific places in a drawing (not just x,y,z, but maybe along arbitrary places which need special identifiers not set up in the CAD facility...)

However, we all know that since AutoCAD is the dominant CAD package, and they as yet have no interest in helping people wean off of windows if that is a local interest, then people will have to consider:

http://www.cad-schroer.com/
or http://www.varicad.com/

or others that are known to be *nux-friendly.

But, back to 3D engines. i'm not advocating adding 3-D *gaming* to spreadsheets. Rather, i'm looking to see if there is feasibility in generating 3-D shapes based on cell data. For instance, let's say you're analyzing corrosion of a building, a ship, a car, an underground utility, whatever... You collect dimensions, mass, environmental and other information. Your spreadsheet has it in numbers, but you want to show your boss the visual impact of the data. Your current spreadsheet choices are to possibly use Excel, and use conditional formatting, but you only get cell data -- unless you figure out the aforementioned 3D engine. If that tool takes off for ad-hoc analysis and helps people avoid expensive or overkill high-end math packages, then great. But, even tho OO.o and SO are growing daily, at SOME point, there will be a need for this. Maybe if I dig around in www.linux.org in spreadsheets or other folders something *might* be present...

Have you take a look at these products?

http://www.varicad.com/VariCAD - supports DWG files via the http://opendesign.com/"Open Design Alliance"

http://fastcad.com/ fastcad - Created by none other than the original developer of AutoCAD, Mike Riddle. Apparently version 8 will run on Linux

note: I have only researched these products because I want to start a Linux solutions company. I have not used them myself (yet). Also IANAE (I am not an engineer)

Here are some cad applications that works in Linux, two of them are commercial though. http://www.qcad.org/ http://varicad.com/ http://www.cycas.de/

• Photoshop: The GIMP - how many times does this need to be said, the interface is slightly different but the gimp has most of the features of photoshop plus a few of its own.
  Why don't I do the rest of the main Adobe stuff while I'm at it:
  
  • Pagemaker: Scribus
  • Illustrator: Inkscape
  
  
• Games: Cedega - but maybe you'd be better off using a console (not as in bash you blockhead) as they're cheap and while piracy for them is a bit harder its doable if you're commited.
• Autocad: a quick search reveals two commercial solutions LinuxCAD and VariCAD and a guide to getting AutoDesk's Autocad running under wine
• Dreamweaver: NVU, Amaya, hell even fckEditor or, if you're hardcore then vi(e)macs.

You are correct in that fully capable software is a long time off, but there has to be some short cut to a basic CAD for Linux. Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but surely the market will soon support solutions derived from an existing renderer (Blender), 2D CAD (QCAD), existing 3D (Cycas, arcad, ICAADS, OpenCascade) or a CAD/CAM (VariCAD) before AutoDesk can turn their ship around. It doesn't even have to be OS/FS, although I would think a FS system could eventually take the market.

Try http://www.varicad.com/

If you want major then you should be looking at Pro/Engineer from PTC. I haven't used it but a student co-op I was supervising used it at the University of Utah and thought I would like it. It looks awesome, and expensive.
http://www.ptc.com/go/wildfire/index.htm

The next logical choice would likely be Varicad. They have a demo version you can download and play with. I've used this and its not bad, about on the same level as AutoCAD. When I get around to buying a CAD application for linux this will likely be it.
http://www.varicad.com/

And things are always changing. It may be worth a look to google around for current offerings. A good start would be here:
http://www.tech-edv.co.at/lunix/CADlinks.html

burnin

I use both Qcad, and Varicad for my personal drafting. But when my personal distro choice (Gentoo), wasn't supported by Varcad. I just emerged RPM, and installed the Fedora2 RPM. Everything has worked fine. So I tried a couple more. And Guess what?

It seems as long as the dependancies are correct, they just seem to work. Go figure

There are alternatives to Autocad for Linux.

LinuxCAD
VariCAD
Varkon - which is free for Linux, but their web site is down so I don't know what the status of this is.

Can't comment on how "full-featured" these Autocad alternatives are.

The solution to your quandry would be to fund the development of your project and then release the software under an open source license. However, there are already a few CAD packages that may meet your needs, though the best ones are not open source, just inexpensive.

FREEdraft Free GPL

LinuxCAD $99
ARCAD $900 ($80 Student)
OCTree Free for non-commercial use.
VariCAD $400

Leagues less functional than Pro/E but the price is VERY good. I think it's around $300 now.

VariCad web site

This Pro/E announcement is awesome news though....

LoB

I performed a quick search on Freshmeat for you. Here's the results (filtered for stuff that's actually relevant, I think). In no particular order:

CYCAS - not sure if it's open-source, but will run on Linux and BSD and looks pretty powerful

Jcad - written in Java, this is an open-sourced CAD which works with DXF file formats. Not the most powerful of tools out there, but it's a start

iCADis - can't tell much from the site, but it might be worth a try. Uses GTK and is covered by the GPL

OCTree - looks like it has a really innovative interface. Not sure about the license though.

Varicad - for mechanical engineering. Looks good, but unsure if it's open.

QCad - seems to be one of the better ones, and it's open.

That's all I can find. You can judge yourself if you need it to be 100% open-source, if you need it to be free, and if you need it to run on a particular platform. Perhaps you might settle on a combination of these, since it doesn't look likely that you'll find something that meets all 3 conditions (assuming you were looking for it).

If you're a programmer, then by all means help out with one of the open-source projects out of the ones mentioned above. Lots of them could use things like improved rendering (speed, effects etc), and the ability to load lots of different file formats.