Linux QCAD Trial & Pro Occurrences and Warnings

Post your question about installing or upgrading QCAD.

Moderator: andrew

Forum rules

Always indicate your operating system and QCAD version.

Post one question per topic.

Post Reply
User avatar
Eugor
Junior Member
Posts: 19
Joined: Sun Mar 31, 2019 11:05 pm

Linux QCAD Trial & Pro Occurrences and Warnings

Post by Eugor » Sat Apr 06, 2019 7:03 pm

Linux Mint19.1 xfce
Qcad 3.22.0
I had previously installed qcad trial. This occurrence shows up under graphics and has a qcad icon app launcher. when it is launched it opens in trial version. After I purchased qcad pro, I tried to install via the download installer file. I had three failures to install. I then downloaded the tarball and followed instructions I found and installed in terminal. There are warnings as shown on screen shot, but it opens in pro version if I command line ./qcad to launch. If I launch via icon under graphics app launcher, it opens trial version. Beyond using linux, my knowledge is very limited, but I can usually follow verbose command line instructions.
1.) Are the warnings something that I need to fix ?
2.) Can the trial be removed and the icon be set to launch pro version ?
Attachments
Screenshot_2019-04-06_12-23-36.png
Icon App Launched
Screenshot_2019-04-06_12-23-36.png (1.13 MiB) Viewed 12407 times
Screenshot_2019-04-06_12-20-14.png
Command Line Launched
Screenshot_2019-04-06_12-20-14.png (1.84 MiB) Viewed 12407 times
Screenshot_2019-04-06_12-18-40.png
Command line launch warnings
Screenshot_2019-04-06_12-18-40.png (2.1 MiB) Viewed 12407 times

User avatar
Husky
Moderator/Drawing Help/Testing
Posts: 4935
Joined: Wed May 11, 2011 9:25 am
Location: USA

Re: Linux QCAD Trial & Pro Occurrences and Warnings

Post by Husky » Sat Apr 06, 2019 7:42 pm

Hi,
Eugor wrote:
Sat Apr 06, 2019 7:03 pm
1.) Are the warnings something that I need to fix ?
unfortunately I'm not a Linux guy but warnings are always alarmingly ... :shock:
Eugor wrote:
Sat Apr 06, 2019 7:03 pm
2.) Can the trial be removed and the icon be set to launch pro version ?
A few basics ....

De-install the Trial,
make sure you downloaded the correct QCAD Pro file regarding to your operating system,
never mix different QCAD version in the same directory - that could cause problems :wink:
if the installer file isn't working for some reasons try the tar.gz
here are installation instruction for Linux
https://qcad.org/en/documentation/insta ... ux_Systems

If you need later for some reasons to run different QCAD installation parallel on your system - that is possible. Right now look for a first clean installation :wink:

Keep us posted :wink:
Work smart, not hard: QCad Pro
Win10/64, QcadPro, QcadCam version: Current.
If a thread is considered as "solved" please change the title of the first post to "[solved] Title..."

User avatar
lphilpot
Senior Member
Posts: 119
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 4:03 am
Location: Deep South USA

Re: Linux QCAD Trial & Pro Occurrences and Warnings

Post by lphilpot » Sun Apr 07, 2019 3:05 am

I'm running QCAD on Xubuntu Linux (also with Xfce). It sounds like your problem is that your menu shortcut is pointing to the trial version instead of the pro version. That's why starting it from the menu launches the trail version. Fixing this is not overly complex, per se, but it may be a little system- (or distro-) specific. If your installation includes MenuLibre or another menu editor (e.g., Alacarte) you can use that to edit the shortcut and make sure it points to the path where your pro version is installed.

[later edit]
I just took a closer look at your screen shots. Your pro version is apparently expanded in your download directory. I recommend moving the entire qcad-3.22* directory to another (more permanent) location before going any further. I put mine under /opt, but /usr/local would work as well. Almost any location will technically work, but having software permanently running in your downloads directory isn't a good idea. /opt and /usr/local are two (of several) standard locations for non-system software installations


Here's what I do to avoid having to edit any shortcuts after installing or upgrading versions. Many installers are built to automatically do that for you, but I'm not sure if QCAD does since I also use the tarball instead of the installer. What I do is (as the root user) untar it under /opt which will automatically create a version-specific directory, for example:

Code: Select all

[root@europa:18] /opt # ls -ld /opt/qcad-3*
drwxrwxr-x 15 len len 4096 Sep 17  2018 /opt/qcad-3.21.3-pro-linux-x86_64
I then create a symlink to that directory that's named just 'qcad':

Code: Select all

[root@europa:18] /opt # ln -s qcad-3.21.3-pro-linux-x86_64 qcad
[root@europa:18] /opt # ls -l qcad
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   28 Apr  6 20:38 qcad -> qcad-3.21.3-pro-linux-x86_64
Note how 'qcad' points to the version-specific qcad installation directory. Think of a symbolic link as sorta like a shortcut in Windows - It's not the "object" it points to, but when a process "uses" it, the process actually ends up "using" whatever it points to instead. Kinda like an alias.

What that does is effectively gives me a generic qcad "directory" (i.e., the symbolic link) that actually points to the currently installed version. When I upgrade, I untar the new file as before, delete the qcad symlink and then recreate it as before to point to the new version directory.

I only have to edit the startup menu file (which in my case is /usr/share/applications/Ribbonsoft-qcad.desktop*) in MenuLibre the first time I do this. Thereafter it still points to the /opt/qcad symlink, which itself points to the current version. As long as the qcad symlink gets (re)created with the same name but pointing to the right version, the menu entries remain correct.

A little side-trip...
The whole topic of the XDG / Freedesktop menu hierarchy is IMO way overkill and arbitrarily complex. There's no point confusing things here, but FYI basically it works like this (to the best of my understanding):
1. System-wide (default) shortcut files (named *.desktop) are located typically in /usr/share/applications.**
2. If you (or a menu editor such as MenuLibre) create a file of the same name under your $HOME directory (e.g., in ~/.local/share/applications) then that shortcut will override the same-named system shortcut for that user, as long as the user file exists. Delete it and the system shortcut becomes default again. None of this affects other users.

** Desktop files are just ordinary text files and are pretty straightforward, but as always there's room for error so if you have a menu editor it might be prudent to use it instead of manually editing the files.

At any rate, it sounds like if you edit the menu settings to point to the pro version you'll be good to go. After you get the pro version working correctly, you can delete the trial version directory.
Len
QCAD Pro

User avatar
Eugor
Junior Member
Posts: 19
Joined: Sun Mar 31, 2019 11:05 pm

Re: Linux QCAD Trial & Pro Occurrences and Warnings

Post by Eugor » Sun Apr 07, 2019 8:17 pm

Len,
This helps me understand what is going on, and how it happened. My terminal use knowledge is growing, but still very limited. I see now where that should have been extracted to a different location. And I see how to address the shortcut and how it points. I will see if I can get this untangled next weekend. Thank You for the reply and the detailed information.

User avatar
lphilpot
Senior Member
Posts: 119
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 4:03 am
Location: Deep South USA

Re: Linux QCAD Trial & Pro Occurrences and Warnings

Post by lphilpot » Sun Apr 07, 2019 8:45 pm

Hopefully it'll be easy enough to untangle. If you run into problems, let us know and we can probably step through diagnosis and the fix via the forum.

Good luck.
Len
QCAD Pro

User avatar
Eugor
Junior Member
Posts: 19
Joined: Sun Mar 31, 2019 11:05 pm

Re: Linux QCAD Trial & Pro Occurrences and Warnings

Post by Eugor » Sat Apr 13, 2019 1:56 am

Thank You very much. I am up and running. I have used various linux operating systems off and on over the years, but as a user only. One of my goals is to learn and be comfortable using the terminal. I have a long ways to go on that one. Between that, QCAD, and cad in general, I think I will be busy learning for quite some time. Thanks again to both of you for your help.

Post Reply

Return to “QCAD Installation and Upgrades”