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-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

Phoronix reports

For fans of the FreeCAD open-source 3D CAD modeling software, a new major release is now available--the first update in almost two years.

FreeCAD 0.17 is now available to succeed FreeCAD 0.16 from April of 2016. While it may not be nearly as well off as AutoCAD or other alternatives, FreeCAD does continue getting better while being free and open-source software.

FreeCAD 0.17 overhauls its PartDesign Workbench, a new add-on manager to make installing new modules/macros easier, Sketcher improvements, new documentation, navigation improvements, and various Workbench improvements are among the changes making up this release.

Those wishing to learn more about FreeCAD 0.17 can check-out the lengthy release notes or head straight over to GitHub to download. Those upgrading to v0.17 are advised to backup their FreeCAD files as there could be issues in the upgrade path.

GitHub notes

This release of FreeCAD is dedicated to our friend Roland Frank who left us in 2017. He was an active and well-appreciated member of the FreeCAD forum, and his video tutorials on the Learn FreeCAD and BPLFRE Youtube channels helped many people get started with FreeCAD.

This is the official 0.17 release of FreeCAD for Windows and Mac OS platforms. Linux users are advised to get FreeCAD from their distribution's repository, or from our PPA if using Ubuntu.

The AppImage should work on most modern 64 bit Linux distributions. Download the file and make it executable. It's self contained and should be portable.

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