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Howdy there. Glad to see some information from the CAD world on Linux. I'm a Linux fan myself and use it for every scrap I can do on it. This does not include my primary occupation, which is CAD work. Unfortuanatly, there aren't the nessesary apps yet. I'm egerly waiting.

I have not yet tried out Corel Linux but I'll be waiting to here how it goes. I've run Slackware, RedHat, and SUSE. Right now I'm running RedHat 6.1 dual boot to Windows.

By the way, you can get builds of Linux from cheapbytes.com. For a couple bucks a disk, they ship right away etc. You can get all the flavors there. What you're going to find is that Linux is moving so fast you're going to want to install upgrades every few months. Instead of the NASTY $89 charge you paid, you'll be able to get the newest releases on CD for a few bucks.

The drawback is support. Starting out, support is awefull nice. So are the manuals (which can also be gotten cheap sometimes). Later on, you won't want to pay for this because you won't need it every update. Just keep it in mind.

Good luck!

- Caleb

The editor replies:

There are three or four CAD systems available for CAD, including one that claims to be AutoCAD compatible. I hope to test them out in the coming months.

I checked out that Web site and found they are charging US$89 for Corel Linux Deluxe. Perhaps updates will be cheaper. OTOH, I am on the waiting list for ADSL, so I hope to download updates directly from Corel.

Caleb replies:

There are several I have used that work pretty good with DWG files, but they do not have the feature sets I'm interested in. I do residencial modeling useing Chief Architect as my primary program. I have been pushing ART towards a linux version for years, but headway is slow. they'll do it sometime tho. Untill a godo program like Chief, ArchiCAD, of softplan type thing is availbe for linux I will not be able to completly dump Microsoft.

[As for cheapbytes.com] If they sell updates. Frankly I can't think of ANYBODY who does. upgrade price probably but not upgrades. it's the full thing or nothing because of how much changes. if you have a CD-R drive you can download it now. Admitedly it's slow on a 56k but it's sure better 'n waiting 30 days for them to ship right?

- Caleb

The editor replies:

That's one of the things I have to figure how: how to get Corel Linux to recognize my computer's CD drive.

Caleb replies:

Corel's installation should have recognized your CD drive. In fact it had to to install right? If you are installed and can't figure out how to access it, the trick is that you ahve to mount it. I do not know if Corel has provieded a GUI based utility to do this or not. If they have you should have some assistance in mounting it. If not a simple comand or two will do the trick. Mounting a drive is typcally done logged on as root or at least in super user (su) mode. The command you'd need to mount your dive would be something like

mnt \dev\cdrom \drives\cdrom

The last part of the string is where you want the folders/files of your CDs to appear in your fies structure. (if your useing SCSI, that card comes first, then mapping the SCSI drive to \dev\cdrom.

- Caleb

The editor replies:

I don't want to get you too involved in solving my problem, but yes, Corel Linux booted off the IDE CD-ROM to install itself. That's why I am puzzled it is not recognized -- and my son is disappointed I haven't figured it out.

Caleb replies:

It recognized it for bootup because it used you BIOS to manipulate the thing. Now it want's it own stuff.

Ok ok I own up. I haven't gotten that yet. But that's because AOL doesn't let such nondescript connections on and I can't seem to get onto these free servers yet and I'm to bum lazy to get an ISP that supports it when I'm getting AOL free despite all it's nutty ways. Haven't gotten a connection to my windows '98 peir to peir network either.

Mounting is pretty basic stuff. I have at least three interfaces for it. Gnome, KDE and aftersetp all have them. Since corel is touted as being "easy" and mouting so so basic an operation it's got to somewhere. It doesn't say much for it that its' taken this long tho. Red had 5.2 too a bit of fenagling but 6.0 pulled it up and mounted it without even being asked. It even pulled up both my CD drives, one being a RW drive.
RedHat 6.2 is supposed to be eaven easier to install etc etc.

That's the trouble with linux man pages. They are so deathly simple and yet they are so complex to figure out.

- Caleb

The editor replies:
I finally realize that the A: and C: drives are not displayed in the file tree as I am used to under Windows File Explorer; instead, they are individual items, almost like another computer in the network. The CD-ROM is now working.