SheetCAM for Linux help/advice, please!

Problems and questions
1

My wife and I have a metal art business. We own an Arclight Dynamics CNC plasma table that includes a SheetCAM license. We’ve owned and used this table since January 2016 with great success. My wife uses a separate laptop to create the designs, I cut them. As part of her design process she sometimes uses SheetCAM to discover/fix any problems before sending me the file to cut. I need to replace Windows 7 on her laptop and I’ve decided to use Peppermint 10 linux (based on Ubuntu 18.04 core).

When I first installed and tried to execute the linux SheetCAM version, it would not run. I fixed the problem with “sudo apt-get install libglu1” and installed the shared library. Unfortunately, that is not the only problem. Now, when I execute the run-sheetcam script, it does launch the program but the terminal window buffer overflows with HUNDREDS of errors! Two relevant examples are listed here:

(SheetCamTNG-dev:2201): GdkPixbuf-CRITICAL **: 18:17:13.846: gdk_pixbuf_get_height: assertion ‘GDK_IS_PIXBUF (pixbuf)’ failed

** (SheetCamTNG-dev:2201): WARNING **: 18:17:13.860: Pixbuf theme: Cannot load pixmap file /usr/share/themes/Peppermint-10-Red-Dark/gtk-2.0/assets/button-hover.png: Failed to load image ‘/usr/share/themes/Peppermint-10-Red-Dark/gtk-2.0/assets/button-hover.png’: Fatal error in PNG image file: bad parameters to zlib

The install of Peppermint 10 64 bit is pristine at this point, no additional PPAs or software was installed before trying to get SheetCAM working. I am frustrated troubleshooting this problem. I am not a nOOb to linux but I’m not a guru either.

Additional information after first posting this request - I tried to use the program, after maybe a minute of use it abruptly closed and the terminal window displayed the following:

The program ‘SheetCamTNG-dev’ received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was ‘BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)’.
(Details: serial 338668 error_code 3 request_code 15 minor_code 0)
(Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)

I relaunched the program and found under the Help menu an option to “Create a Support File”. I tryed to submit the file but it fails. I have attached it to this post.

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance!
Support.zip (16.5 KB)

2

It has been almost a week and I’ve received no help/advice to my posting of problems running SheetCAM TNG for Linux on Peppermint 10 Linux.

I’m not upset, just curious if anyone uses the Linux version and should I continue to expect any offer of help?

I think SheetCAM is an awesome program! I use it daily (on Windows 7) with our ArcLight Dynamics Plasma table. There are a few little quirks but nothing I haven’t figured out work-arounds to handle.

Thank you for help, in advance!

3

Sorry about the delay in replying. Supporting Linux is a nightmare. Every distribution does things slightly differently. I’m not sure about the bad window error but the png error is a known issue I’m working on. It is a compatibility issue between the system I built SheetCam on and the libraries used on your system.

For the time being all I can suggest is to install Wine then run the Windows version of SheetCam. If Peppermint offers the development branch of Wine use that. Wine is changing quite quickly so it is usually best to use the most recent version.

4

Hi Les - Thank you very much for posting a reply. Knowing you are working on the issue is reassuring. I would be happy to help in any way I can. You can use my personal email from my profile…

A question: What distro/version do you use to build the Linux version?

A suggestion: You could offer the Linux version of SheetCAM TNG as a snap.

I resist using wine (for the usual compatibility issues) but I will try it in this case. I REALLY need to get my wife off Windows 7 - she won’t use Win10.

Thank you again!

5

The main reason why I have a Linux version is to support LinuxCNC. Unfortunately LinuxCNC uses old releases of Debian. Snaps and other universal packaging systems don’t usually work with distros that old.

6

Hi Les Im using Linux mint and sheetcam doesnt seem to work for me in mint what version of Linux do you think would be best for Sheetcam

7

why doesn’t it work on mint?

what are the messages when you try to run it?

have you installed the deb,?

how far did you get?

8

It worked in the last version but i upgraded to the new version and debian doesnt load something about a read line7
Im new to linux but it is not very good for anything but browsing and typing a letter ive been using sheetcam in windows

9

That readline dependency is a nightmare. Every differnt Linux release contains a different incompatible version of libreadline.
Try installing Wine. It is in your package manager. Now you should be able to install the Windows version. Wine acts as a translation layer that lets Windows apps run on Linux.