(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

I've successfully installed Google Sketchup version 7 under Wine on two computers -- both Pent 4 32 bit.

The first is an older ASUS desktop running Puppy 4.3.2 test v3 and using an Nvidia graphics card. Wine ver 1.28.1

The second is an IBM Thinkpad T43 using an ATI Radeon X300 board and running MU's NewyearsPup rc10. Wine ver 1.3.17

The key to running Sketchup, as well as many other graphics intensive Windows CAD applications, is to use the proprietary graphics drivers provided by your graphics board manufacturer. Before I understood that ,I was unsuccessful with most of these apps.

Nvidia provides an installer which you run after adding devx and kernel source to your Puppy installation. Running the installer is pretty easy, and it compiles a driver suited to the kernel of puppy you are using.

For my Thinkpad ATI Radeon board, I found a driver .pet for my specific board created by MU -- the ATI Catalyst 9.3 version. Most other .pet versions did not include my board. Unfortunately the 9.3 Catalyst .pet runs on very few puplet kernel versions, but I found MU's NewYearsPup was set upfor it.

It would be great if a standard Barry Kauler puppy 4 version could run the Catalyst 9.3 video drivers, and I'd love to hear from anyone who has been successful in working that out. I prefer the old meat and potatoes standard puppies for everyday use.

I just got both of these up and runningwith Sketchup, and will add what I find in subsequent posts.

If you want to see how Sketchup works, these short video tutorials walk you through very quickly:

http://sketchup.google.com/training/vid ... o_gsu.html

There are many plugins available for the free version of sketchup which make it much more useful for design work. These include workarounds for the file save function to allow pdf output, flattening and unfolding functions, tensile structure design,G-code output, etc. Sketchup accepts Ruby scripts, as plugins, so there is a big world out there of extensions.

Wow thanks indeed. I want to learn this for to be able to show some naive design for funny "bikes" as I do now I take a photo of a pencil drawing with the mobile and that is not so practical. So if Schetchy can do bikes that would be cool.

nice to have another 3D choice.seems strange that google who use and promote linux would spend so much time creating only a windows app.

For Windows XP/Vista/7 & Mac OS X (10.5+)

ok so it mac as well.
http://wiki.winehq.org/GoogleSketchup

Running Google Sketchup on Wine

Google Sketchup is a freely downloadable 3D modeling application first introduced for MS Windows in 2000.

As of Wine-1.0, Sketchup 6 and 7 both run on Wine, at least with Nvidia graphics cards, although you may have to jump through some hoops to get it working.

If you've been waiting to run Sketchup in Linux, wait no more!

http://wiki.winehq.org/GoogleSketchup

Nooby, it can do bikes for sure. There are concept cars, radio controlled airplane models, architecture, boats -- basically anything you need to surface model.

One thing I've found so far is that I need to start it from a terminal in the folder where the program resides. So cd to that folder first in terminal, then run the SketchUp.exe program.

I'm also running an earlier version (7) than the latest version 8. I have heard that the earlier version may be easier to run some of the extensions people have made for it.

Possibly Google is moving towards tightening control of the free version. The pro version is $495, but many of the limitations of the free version can be overcome with plugins available on the net.

One source of very good information on using Sketchup in 3D design, flattening out components and adding and using extensions are on model airplane building forums. This one is a very useful thread, I've found:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=920416

Here are bicycle parts made by other users that you can import into Sketchup:

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/ ... gs=bicycle

aarf wrote:nice to have another 3D choice.seems strange that google who use and promote linux would spend so much time creating only a windows app.

Well Google didn't actually develop Sketchup, they bought the company that built SketchUp when it looked like Autocad might be eyeing it. Autocad apparently has a habit of buying up the competition.

Not sure why Google ventured this way into an app of this sort..

Anyway, it was originally a Win app, rather than Google developing for Windows.

vtpup wrote:

aarf wrote:nice to have another 3D choice.seems strange that google who use and promote linux would spend so much time creating only a windows app.

Well Google didn't actually develop Sketchup, they bought the company that built SketchUp when it looked like Autocad might be eyeing it. Autocad apparently has a habit of buying up the competition.

Not sure why Google ventured this way into an app of this sort..

Anyway, it was originally a Win app, rather than Google developing for Windows.

ok that makes sense .

vtpup wrote:Nooby, it can do bikes for sure. There are concept cars, radio controlled airplane models, architecture, boats -- basically anything you need to surface model.

One thing I've found so far is that I need to start it from a terminal in the folder where the program resides. So cd to that folder first in terminal, then run the SketchUp.exe program.

I'm also running an earlier version (7) than the latest version 8. ...
Here are bicycle parts made by other users that you can import into Sketchup:

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/ ... gs=bicycle

Thanks. Very interesting. Only my lazyness and lack of skill following instructions is an obstacle now.

I can't install Google Sketchup in my puppy 5.28 installtion.
I have installed nVidia drivers.
I tried Sketchup 8 and 7.
At both, installation ends with message:
'Unable to satisfy all prerequisites for Google Sketchup. Setup cannot continue until all system components have been successfuly installed.'

I've just tried Sketchup7.1 in LUPU 5.28 v.5 and using Wine-1.3.13-Lucid52on the Thinkpad T43. I have finally got it to work, and this is the first time since I used NewYearsPup as an OS. Glad to have achieved it but there are some drawbacks.

First, here's what I had to do to get it to work:

1.) Changed to the Sketchup installer directory and open a terminal there (this was essential to installing successfully).

2.) Entered "wine sketchup.exe"

3.) Program installed.

When I first tried Sketchup however, the program opened fine but the drawing screen remained black. All of the tools seemed to work and all of the toolbars were there, and the program seemed active -- I just couldn't see any work.

After some research on the web I found a number of ATI and Intel graphics card users were only successful AFTER editing the xorg.conf file and explicitely turning off DRI.

Formerly, Nvidia users were successful if they ran proprietary graphics drivers. And Sketchup was also well supported by newer ATI drivers, but not current drivers for my older Thinkpad ATI chip.

An older ATI proprietary driver did work on specific early kernels -- in fact that's why I had to formerly use MU's older puplet "NewYearsPup". But that was the only puplet it worked on

I have been wanting to upgrade to a newer puppy for a long time but didn't want to give up Sketchup, which I use regularly.

Now with DRI disabled in Lupu 5.28, Sketchup works, and GLX still remains -- I found I could run the command glxgears, but at a drastically reduced framerate (about 1/5 of what it had been). Nevertheless, Skethchup could now be run and everything was visible.

I'm wondering if there is a newer verison of DRI under LUPU that might work with Sketchup. It would be very helpful to be able to run DRI and Puppy at a good frame rate and yet retain Sketchup functionality.

Anyway I wanted to report this change in what can run Sketchup on loder computers.

is there any reason why you dont use blender http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=66935
also goes into lupu528.005. no need for wine.

is there any reason why you dont use blender?

the rather daunting user interface and steep learning curve?

Aarf, I see there's a Blender thread if that's what someone prefers. I've tried both and there are plenty of reasons why individuals may prefer using one or the other.

This thread is focused on installing and using Sketchup on Puppy.

I've now got sketchup 7.1 running on my new Acer laptop under Racy53. This laptop uses the Intel sandbridge graphics chips

The main requirement is to make sure your graphics card or chips has a good linux or proprietary driver, or if not, that you disable DRI in your X config.

GLX is essential though. If you can run glxgears from a terminal, chances are you can run Sketchup -- at least version 7. And that one is very well supported with free third party plugins and tools, including CAM, which I'm interested in.

This week I tested 5 late kernel Puppy distros for Sketchup compatibility.

On this machine Racy53 ran Sketchup graphics far faster than Lupu 528, Sulu, Upup Precise, and 3HeadedDog. Racy will therefore become the day-to-day OS for this machine.

Testing was done on all with Wine 1.52 (full) and the best Xorg/proprietary drivers available for this machine in that distro. Racy did not require any special drivers but ran SketchUp out of the box at high speed..

As a point of interest Google just sold SketchUp.

Love Sketchup - used it in research publications and I must say, very pleased they made this freely available for so long.

But the axe has fallen, ey?

Thanks vtpup - for your exhaustive testing and comprehensive 'how-to'. Might have to adopt these tips for some wine/directX hassles I'm having - and glxgears looks the goods, given my terminal error outputs.

Cheers!

PuppyT if you want to post your computer type, graphics card (or chips if onboard) type, Operating system, and Wine version, I would be happy to make some suggestions.

It really sounds more complicated to write about than to actually set up. I can usually get a machine running Sketchup in a few minutes.

I strongly recommend the 7.1 version of Sketchup, however, rather than Sketchup 8. I don't think I've been successful yet with running 8 under Wine.

But it isn't a great loss -- I think 7.1 has more free 3rd party plugins to enable it to do anything the later versions (or the paid version) can do -- maybe even more.

As an example, I routinely export to .dxf from Sketchup 7.1 with a free plugin, and can import all kinds of files, including .dat airfoil files. I can also output to G-code for a milling machine.

I don't think that the transfer of ownership from Google will affect me, even if the new owners mess future program development up -- I already have 7.1 configured to do anything I might want to in a CAD, and running in Puppy under Wine.

Thought I'd post a couple of screen captures of projects I've used Sketchup 7.1 on -- In Puppy on Wine..

Hello,
Any Chance sketchup will run oft a bootable CD, does some prebuilt thing exist?
Vor will it allways fail without chan ging the driver?
I have Tod work with Laptops hat I can't alter, and for the children IN work with it would be a simple choice AS the Browser based CAD is not available in our language vor just not running in these Laptops...

Thanks

Hello vtpup,

Thank you for your posts on Google SketchUp.
They are much appreciated.

Is there a .pet download for both the professional version of SketchUp and the free download of SketchUp for the non-professional?
or
Is WINE the only access to SketchUP?

Specifically,
I'm looking for both the pro-landscape version which is a paid-for download
and
I'm looking for the non-professional version which is a free download.
I can find the sites on the web for various downloads, however, I am hoping there is a .pet created for any SketchUp.
The Puppy in play is Precise 5.7.1.
The machines vary, but, all have enough RAM and video card capacity.
Thank you for your suggestions.