VW on Linux

[unearthed]

Like many others I am definitely not looking forward to the upcoming forced change to windows 11, and have been reading about Linux. I've seen a number of posts across the last two decades on here about people running VW on various Linux versions, and varying levels of complexity but success like EricsW in this 2021 thread that includes Linux KVM.

 

So who here has had success running VW on Linux of any version including virtual machines like EricsW’s solution?

 

I’m still on 2018 and for my use see no benefit to go beyond this (increasingly my workflow is in Rebelle and QGIS/R - but vectorworks is still a useful tool for making sheet sets, and for plant counting and orders - it is still the only CAD with an integrated (good enough) spreadsheet). I will never use ‘Service Select’ or any other ‘saas’, a; it’s being party to the parasitic rent-seeking mindset, and b; I often end up being places with poor connections and had enough of this when I tried the Sketchup saas and found it seriously wanting. And I’m not interested in dongle approaches either.

[zoomer]

I think it is quite unrealistic to expect that VW will one day offer Linux support or that a 3D CAD App like VW will run reliable in a Windows emulation like WINE.
(While with latest progress in Steam and similar and an older less demanding VW version like your VW 2018 it might be worth to try again. Problematic may be the VW licensing and installation itself though)

 

And usually someone who prefers to run Linux does so for reasons and is likely not interested in running a Windows beside, even in a VM. But I think it would be the easiest and less annoying option for running VW on Linux. A Windows 10 VM with no or limited temporary internet access just running an older VW.
This is what I did with my Windows only 3D and CAD Apps when I switched to Apple and OSX. I started with Windows via Bootcamp but soon wanted to work in OSX and ran Windows 10 virtually. First with VMware but that did never really work well for demanding GPU support and was lagging. It was only reasonably working with Parallels.
And this is where I am not experienced or sure about quality of Windows VMs on Linux. E.g. testing virtualizations like Virtualbox on Mac did not allow me to reliable run Linux installations itself. So I doubt a CAD would run well.

My VM experience ended many years ago and may be outdated.

 

But I am still running a Manjaro and ElementaryOS (lost my Tumbleweed installation) on the PC beside a latest Windows 11. I don't really use the PC beside for testing and am happy that I can still work on Mac.

[unearthed]

Thanks Zoomer,

I agree I don’t see VW supporting Linux ever.

 

I’ll digest that what you’ve written (and your comments on other threads here) alongside my other reading. As far as I can tell (at least theoretically) I think I can run all my other software on Linux either directly or via wine.  Alongside will definitely be what I do for a while until very comfortable with whatever Linux I use

 

I only use VW in quite simple ways, and don’t use any rendering functions or any 3D outside of terrain model. I’ve not seen anything that is more than I need on from 2018.

 

So many versions of Linux! I need to do some serious reading, esp. on Manjaro.