FreeCAD and Raspberry Pi 4

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papy
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FreeCAD and Raspberry Pi 4

Post by papy »

Hi everyone,
Have you planned a freeCAD package for the Raspberry Pi 4 under Raspbian Buster?
Thank you for your answer and possible evolution.
Papy

[Edit] : ATM there is not fix yet to run FreeCAD py3/Qt5 (from apt repo) with no graphic crash on Raspberry OS 32B.
However you can enjoy FreeCAD by compiling it:

- on Raspberry OS64B-beta: works great with V3D graphic acceleration (+/-20fps with std parts). The best choice ATM IMHO.
- on Ubuntu 20.04LTS: FC works fine here, compiled with Py3/Qt5, but a bit slow because CPU graphic acceleration.
- on Raspberry OS32B: compiled with Py2/Qt4 libs (not the best way, Py2 is outdated, FC 0.19.2 is the very last release Py2 friendly and some addons workbenches will fail)
Last edited by papy on Sat Oct 02, 2021 6:51 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Kunda1
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Re: FreeCAD and Raspberry Pi 4

Post by Kunda1 »

papy wrote: Wed Jul 03, 2019 6:55 am Have you planned a freeCAD package for the Raspberry Pi 4 under Raspbian Buster?
There has been discussion about FC on RaspberryPi but I'm not sure how much it has evolved? Do you have experience packaging ?
@kkremitzi was interested at the time.
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papy
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Re: FreeCAD and Raspberry Pi 4

Post by papy »

Hi,
Kunda1 wrote: Wed Jul 03, 2019 12:25 pm Do you have experience packaging ?
Unfortunately no experience :(
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papy
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Re: FreeCAD and Raspberry Pi 4

Post by papy »

Hi,
On reading the topic: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... 7#p1492154
I installed FeeCAD (0.18) and it runs normally. But when creating a new file, freecad crashes.
I have the following error message:
Coin warning in cc_glglue_instance(): Error when setting up the GL context. This can happen if there is no current context, or if the context has been set up incorrectly.
Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
#0 /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libc.so.6(__default_sa_restorer+0)
Do you have a solution or idea to solve this problem?
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Kunda1
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Re: FreeCAD and Raspberry Pi 4

Post by Kunda1 »

papy wrote: Fri Jul 05, 2019 9:22 am Hi,
On reading the topic: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... 7#p1492154
I installed FeeCAD (0.18) and it runs normally. But when creating a new file, freecad crashes.
I have the following error message:
Coin warning in cc_glglue_instance(): Error when setting up the GL context. This can happen if there is no current context, or if the context has been set up incorrectly.
Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
#0 /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libc.so.6(__default_sa_restorer+0)
Do you have a solution or idea to solve this problem?
I would make a new thread asking for help on this topic and then linking back to this thread. The error seems to be coming from Coin3d
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Re: FreeCAD and Raspberry Pi 4

Post by vocx »

papy wrote: Fri Jul 05, 2019 9:22 am ...
I have the following error message:
Coin warning in cc_glglue_instance(): Error when setting up the GL context. This can happen if there is no current context, or if the context has been set up incorrectly.
Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
#0 /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libc.so.6(__default_sa_restorer+0)
Although it has value, you should consider whether FreeCAD is really worth running in a Raspberry Pi. It has very little RAM and a relatively slow processor. Although it has a GPU, nothing guarantees that it can handle 3D shapes that FreeCAD manipulates. On the other hand, since FreeCAD depends on OCCT, Coin3d, Qt5, etc., you should verify that one of these libraries actually works in the Pi. If even a single dependency doesn't work in ARM, it may be impossible to make FreeCAD work.
Always add the important information to your posts if you need help. Also see Tutorials and Video tutorials.
To support the documentation effort, and code development, your donation is appreciated: liberapay.com/FreeCAD.
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papy
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Re: FreeCAD and Raspberry Pi 4

Post by papy »

Hi,
vocx wrote: Mon Jul 29, 2019 11:14 pm Although it has value, you should consider whether FreeCAD is really worth running in a Raspberry Pi. It has very little RAM and a relatively slow processor. Although it has a GPU, nothing guarantees that it can handle 3D shapes that FreeCAD manipulates. On the other hand, since FreeCAD depends on OCCT, Coin3d, Qt5, etc., you should verify that one of these libraries actually works in the Pi. If even a single dependency doesn't work in ARM, it may be impossible to make FreeCAD work.
FreeCad 0.16 worked well in one of the previous version of the OS. The use of FreeCad can be interesting in the domain of 3D printing.
There is an operational version on RPI3 + B (http://www.micrometer.xyz/cdn/node/1) with acceptable reaction times.
The RPI4 has more RAM (max 4GB) and faster so even more comfortable for the user.

Other thread for FreeCad on RPI4 : https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic. ... 97#p323897
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Re: FreeCAD and Raspberry Pi 4

Post by looo »

It seems like conda-forge is trying to package qt for aarch64. So once this is done we could also try to build freecad (and dependencies) for aarch64. But a lot of work is necessary to get it done. Could be a nice gsoc project for next year.
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Re: FreeCAD and Raspberry Pi 4

Post by kkremitzki »

With the performance increase of the Raspberry Pi 4 it should definitely be possible to run FreeCAD for light to medium uses, and the potential this has for low-cost use of FreeCAD for education is huge, which in turn would have a big impact on adoption and growth. Getting this working is on my backlog and if anyone is interested trying to troubleshoot to dig deeper into the problem I'd be glad to help.
Like my FreeCAD work? I'd appreciate any level of support via Patreon, Liberapay, or PayPal! Read more about what I do at my blog.
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-alex-
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Re: FreeCAD and Raspberry Pi 4

Post by -alex- »

Performance wase already pretty cool on Raspberry 3B+, I ran Freecad on it for educational purpose and it was perfectly suitable with small and medium models. The 1Go RAM was the limitation.
So indeed, RPI4 could be really more suitable. A package would be so great :)

Off topic, not about packaging I mean: I own a RPI4B4, last weekend Tetsujin (https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=38204) helped me to compile the Freecad actual source code on it. After solved some dependancies issues, compiling failed at 96%. Gcc returned an error about a circular dependancy with a file of techdraw module copying on itself. Sorry I have no more informations to paste here cause I have formated the sd card to re-start from fresh Raspbian installation. Do you think I could success to compile Freecad on RPI4? Or some QT5 dependancy and so one are still missing about ARMHF core?

Edit: I'm just reading your recent posts on raspberry forum.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... 1#p1515198
Ok, I should try again to compile following your advices. Please feel you free to tell me about eventual traps to avoid about Freecad compiling on arm64, cause my skills are very limited about compiling, dépendencies and so on.
For now I'm using https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/CompileOnUnix as starting point. Is it up to date?
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