Did you also get most of the extra software installed at the same time or did you need to spend extra time getting all your non-OS software installed to make your computer actually useful?

I never have an issue with people preferring a different CAD package over another. For example: I detest Fusion 360 for various reasons even after spending a year with it. We all have preferences, work requirements, and even “vibe” better with one package over the rest. You need to choose the tool that works best for you.

What I do have an issue with is new users that try and have problems and immediately start whinging that “FreeCAD isn’t like what I know. And it needs to be like my favorite” Those are the lazy people that can’t be bothered to learn something new. And they should either expend the effort to learn or go back to whatever they were using or volunteer to code, (it’s open source after all). FreeCAD ain’t for you.

But if you have given FreeCAD, (or ANYTHING new in life), an honest try and you can’t get the hang of it or simply don’t like it. Well, that’s a valid and very fair reason to not use it.

Been there done that. Got the tee shirt.

While good support to customers is very valuable, trying to support a product that is decades old and shares nothing in common with current products is a plain waste of time energy and money.

It would require someone to search out all the documentation needed to make that one part, then you need to figure out the correct process to make said part, determine if you have material on hand or need to special order something, then try to find that one old jig/fixture needed amongst a building full of 100’s of such items for the right one. Then you need to be sure that the the complete fixture is there and nothing is worn out beyond use. Then you need to make time to insert this one-off semi-custom part into the manufacturing process.

By the time you do all this, that one 20 year old obsolete part will have perhaps cost you thousands of dollars and you still haven’t made the first piece of swarf. Imagine the shock and surprise that customer would have when they get the bill that accurately reflects the true cost.

Then it’s a habit not a fear. I also am comfortable with the cli since I started with Linux back at RedHat 5 and Mandrake 6. It was learn it or die in those days. But as time has passed, I find myself using it less and less because I don’t really need it everyday. But while I might need to google a specific command because I forgot it, I still remember it’s possible and handy.

No it’s not. Unlearning old habits and thought processes is always the first step in learning new things. But to be fair, it’s also the most difficult part.

While other CAD packages do have a better failure path to follow, they still can fail at the same points as FreeCAD. And you still really should be following best practices for ANY CAD package to avoid failures. But people are nothing if not lazy. And fillets and chamfers just suck in any CAD package. It’s always been my practice to never add them until I was done with the modeling. And if major changes where needed, I would remove them if I suspected they could even remotely cause an issue during a change to a model.

You just want to be angry and complain about something don’t you. Either get over it and learn to use FreeCAD or don’t. But whinging is unproductive and useless.

Well that will draw a lot of attention for sure.

Truthfully, I have very seldom hung out in fancy clubs or bars. The places I have hung out in, if you followed someone into the restroom just to talk to them, you would have gotten the shit beat out of you and barred from ever coming back.

They still have somethings to cleanup and tweak to make the guessing better and more reliable. But it’s on it’s way for sure.

Why does it surprise you much that FreeCAD isn’t like SW? And why do you think it should be?

For daily use, you don’t need the command line. Only in fairly rare instances do you need to resort to it when things go wrong. And those commands are a mere google away. So don’t let the that big bad scary terminal stand in your way. It’s not the stumbling block you think it is.

You can say you have put in the effort to learn it and the effort doesn’t pay off for you. It happens and is nothing to be ashamed of. But the blunt truth is the majority do NOT want to learn anything new because change is scary and simply want to complain about the tiniest difference. If I had a nickle for every time I’ve tried to help someone with FreeCad and they start complaining how FreeCAD isn’t like Fusion360 and why isn’t it, I probably could afford that SW license. No shit, It ain’t Fusion.

There’s a huge difference between a CAD package that has had millions of dollars and multiple development teams spent on it to polish and tweak it into perfection and a small team of volunteers that are working in their basements and backyards for free so they can give it away for free. Why would you be surprised and upset that it can be chaotic and janky. Your choice is to either continue to climb that mountain to master FreeCAD or to move on to something that does make you happy. To quote that famous puppet, " Either do or do not. There is no try"

I will tell you that any CAD package is simply a tool-- a means to an end and not the end itself. And if the tool doesn’t work for YOU after giving it a good try, don’t use that tool. I will also say that despite enjoying the sackcloth and ashes of FreeCAD, I would never recommend it for professional use. It’s not ready for prime time. There are better tools out there for that field of battle. But that doesn’t mean FreeCAD is not a useful tool and can do a lot of impressive things if you wish to spent the effort.

It’s probable, I do like to cook and do it well. Though I don’t own a single kitchen knife that costs over $10US. But, that foraging really makes a large difference in the grocery bill also. Particularly when the grocery store is a mere 100 mile round trip away.

I tend to think I’m somewhere in the middle of surviving and hobbyist. I grew up poor and I’m often just doing the same things I have always done since childhood because we needed to. And I continue to do a lot of it simply because of habit and I do enjoy eating everything I forage.

The title most certainly doesn’t contain the whole book. But it does contain the whole belief of the author.

Well, stop and think about all those plastic medical devices that get used. Everything from syringes to hips, to air tubing, to the packaging of sterilized surgical instruments. That’s a metric carp tonne of plastics. There are a LOT of life threat level safety devices that use plastics also.

We probably don’t need to bottle soda pop or water in plastic bottles, but the use of plastics will never go away.

They struggle with FeeCAD for the same reason they struggle with ANY little change in software-- they simply don’t want to be bothered to learn something new. It’s called being lazy.

No. More. Plasticccc? Whelp, there goes my new hip and wheel chair and pain here I come!

Much the Scots ruining Scotland, liberals seem to delight in ruining liberalism. As time passes, I see liberals more worried about some other liberal’s little slot in life. And less and less concerned with getting things done. The Big Picture is eschewed in favor of fighting over minutia.

We get what we are asking for.

A silly comic often leads to a silly discussion. Sometimes you just need to run with it. Or in the words-- Don’t hate the playa, hate the game.

You must spend a fair amount of time in bars to be so wise. Bars and even restaurants have limited floor space so they can often have just one urinal and you wait your turn. And I have never had anyone even try to talk to me in a bar or restaurant restroom. Why would they? We are there to drink and eat, not discuss philosophy.