Anyone had any luck running Fusion 360 on Linux?

@IMALlama it's called #FreeCAD there running-away-and-hiding

Got to be fair, since the 1.x update it got so much more usable for me
- Yep, very much improved. I recking it will turn out like Blender. It sucks right now compared to some other tools like Fusion360, but given time it will improve and at some point it will tip over into being the default. It all depends on buy in. If a few bigger players get behind it because they can avoid predatory fees and costs associated with using a proprietary piece of software they will switch, invest in their own mods, then drive the industry knowledge standard towards FreeCAD. That will break the hold the proprietary apps have as workers gain skills in the new context, leaving the old proprietary stuff to rot. I hope it is soon, but it will happen eventually.
Oh, I know. I am familiar with the fusion workflow and it generally just works - even when you mess with a feature way earlier in your timeline.
I model some vaguely complex things and find that I often fiddle with things. From the last I looked into it, OSS CAD didn't handle this very well.
- OpenSCAD can also be fun if you like fiddling with parametric designs.
That's unhelpful. The person might be a professional in a work that mandates using Fusion360. "FreeCAD is the best Linux supported CAD program but you should try running a VM inside of Linux and see if fusion 360 works a" is way more helpful.
- If they're a pro and the software doesn't support the OS, it'd be kinda foolish to not stick with what's supported.i
Hah, I was about to say they seem to have misspelled FreeCAD.
Or if like me, you want something closer to fusion or Solidworks, there’s Onshape. At least until it enshitifies.

Yes and no. This install script works well, but it breaks every few months (not the fault of the script, but Autodesk). Then you have to wait for an update and reinstall everything.

The second link to this repo, thanks!
When you say it breaks every few months does that mean that fusion does its usual update thing as-per-normal and then just nopes out one day?
- The main function of the script is to enable the browser redirect for the login. Sometimes Autodesk changes how the login works and logs you out. Then you can't login back again, because the browser redirect doesn't work.

Answering the title: No. Never heard of anyone who had.

Embrace Freecad or succumb to windows/macos

I've had it run on wine a few years back, but it's hard to say if it would still run now as they change it all the time. Freecad is ok for simpler designs, but if you do complex cad work, you hit its limits (clunky and buggy). There's always onshape though, works perfectly fine on Linux.

It's very easy to bypass TPM / Secure Boot requirements and install Windows 11 on Ivy Bridge, though I'd favour going Linux anyways and make a Windows virtual machine for stuff like if you can't give up proprietary software.

That's just me. If you want to install Win11: Basically you just need Rufus to make your boot-able USB stick and you tick a box to disable the checks. That's it. On the same PC hardware it'll HWID activate, don't buy a key.

Or if it doesn't just use massgrave activator found in github.

I haven't looked into this at all, but wasn't Microsoft threatening to block updates if your system doesn't meet the requirements?
- They did once but never have. Four years later in a couple days in fact.

After exploring options such as Fusion360 and SOLIDWORKS I ended up making a free account on onshape. It's web-based and works flawlessly on Firefox and Linux. I should try a bit more FreeCAD, but lack motivation.

Freecad has gotten much better with the recent updates.
It's UI is (obviously) different than fusion, but so are other CAD programs.
Sure, it may not be at the stage where it could be used to do 100% of the mechanical and electrical design on a jet helicopter, but how many people need that level of complexity for their projects?
- Better, but it's still pretty shit.
OnShape is just waiting to be enshittified

Drop autodesk. I've got access to autodesk products as an educator, and I've used inventor for years, but I have only had FreeCAD on my system for months. I have not found myself being unable to do anything I could do in Inventor.

I've had issues with FreeCAD being less performant and freezing or crashing when trying to make more complex parts.
Fairly rare though and I've been able to work around it
- Tbf even solidworks crashes when designing complex assemblies
- While the tn issue is better, personally found I a lot better to not use external geometry at all and instead build my references wrt the base plane. At worst I have to change a sketch attachment, that and doing chamfers absolutely last has saved a ton of grief on some recent models. I hand sketch first, how I learned cad in the first place, that workflow seems to mesh well with it.
  Still the odd crash here or there but I'm accepting of it.

https://github.com/cryinkfly/Autodesk-Fusion-360-for-Linux

Sweet, thanks!
- This script is why I ended up learning how to use OnShape. It's probably much better nowadays, but I could not get it working a few years ago. I needed CAD and OnShape was close enough to Inventor that it was almost frictionless.

While I'd like to know the same, I'd also recommend reading their EOS page. You have time to switch over.

    
**What does end of support mean for Windows 10 and Fusion?**

Fusion will continue to work on Windows 10 after the 14th - however, Autodesk will no longer consider Windows 10 for validation, bug fixing, and product support of future releases. Application compatibility and support will not be guaranteed for this platform for releases after this date.

Fusion360 has been rated Silver on WINE (windows compatability tool) so you have a decent shot of running it. Silver means "couple of minor bugs, might need tweaks to run but runs well".

In Linux we have FreeCAD but if you're heavily dependent on Fusion360 I'd recommend trying a Virtual Windows Machine, Bottles, Lutris, Steam Proton, the installation script posted here and so on.

If you have space for two drives on your computer then worst case you could bypass the windows whatever and have two different OSs.

This, maybe with something with good wine/gpu compatibility like CachyOs. And if it fails there are ways to install windows 11 on IvyBridge

You'll need to get used to many new things when switching to Linux. Changing to FreeCAD could as well be one of those

It will be frustrating, and it will take some time to get used to but honestly it's worth it. If not for anything else then to flex your brain cells and keep them nimble

I second freeCAD for complicated designs. For simple stuff I use tinkercad which runs from web browser
- Personally I'd say go with freeCAD even for simple designs too. Its a great way to learn the software and you will not end up adjusting you designs to the limitations that tinkercad has. Them the transition to more complicated designs will be less painful
  Also I feel like it is difficult to do premise placement on tinkercad
Does FreeCAD do CAM too?
- It has a dedicated CAM workbench yeah
  Here are some YouTube tutorials for CAM in freeCAD https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaUEbWaf2rhSGcjQK9LYuL4PkV1GzjeIY
  And the CAM category on the freeCAD wiki https://wiki.freecad.org/Category:CAM
- I tried it some time ago and it was pretty usable, I reckon it is only better now.
I've dabbled in Linux in the past and spend the majority of my time popping between windows and mac os. I also spend a decent amount of time in powershell/terminal, but largely in the context of work.
I'm not against investing the time learn new things, but time is very scarse these days with two younger kids.
My modeling workflow is often iterative and fusion's timeline makes it very easy to edit a feature from way back when and then propagate that change through all subsequent steps that reference that feature. You can also add entirely new features and then update the next step in the timeline to reference them. The last time I looked at alternatives this either wasn't supported or was fickle, but based on some comments in this post that may have changed. I'll have to give FreeCAD a try.
- I think it's called parametric design right?, freeCAD suppports this but I have heard that there is a bug when trying to edit shapes with filet I think?

I think I remember people saying they got it working with this

https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps

That being said, stuff like Fusion 360 changes quite often and even if it works now it might break compatibility with the future update.

FreeCAD has come a long way since with the 1.0 release and the 1.1 release also has lots of good quality of life improvements.

I just normally end up using Onshape

Yep. Dont need to fuck and install it on other random PCs just login and use it. Its even for a mobile app, probably better for tablets.
And unlimited free designs. Yes there public but I'm not making $$$$ from my designs.

You can install a W11 VirtualBox VM on an old, unsupported processor without any special configuration. I have it running under Linux on a 10 year old AMD processor and it works fine.

Yeah, that is what I would have done. Check out Tiny10 and Tiny11, which is stripped down, but totally functional Windows versions that is perfect to use as base images for a VM. I used the default VM/QUEMU app that ships with Fedora, called Box (I think?). But you could install VirtualBox as well.
There are also scripts to unlock upgrade on „unsupported” processors which still technically work with 11

No, I tried for a while but I gave up.

I switched to Onshape and I'm very happy with the switch.

No luck. I use OnShape.

This has been my experience. I couldn't even get logged in to Fusion via Bottles.

You could also try installing Windows IoT LTSC.

At this point I want to give Linux an earnest go on this box. I bought a second SSD and will just unplug the windows drive for a while.
I am curious if fusion will support LTSC and/of whatever version of 11 they call out.
If you're going to pirate, you might as well get Windows Server. It runs everything without any of the Windows garbage preinstalled like Xbox.

So can still use it just not receive support right? They didn't cripple the actual software just because windows 10 isn't supported I hope?

Fusion said it will stop working. It's normally a licensed product, although home users can get it for free. I suspect they have some kind of authentication mechanism built in and could prevent it from working if desired.
- That seems pretty messed up.
I'm pretty sure it eventually stopped working altogether when Windows 7 was cut off. I'm like 80% sure that's what eventually force me to upgrade to 10 but it's been a while.
- Wonder if they are in cahoots? I see no good reason why fusion would want to do this to customers? It's one thing if they think the support burden for older OS is too great (silly, but whatever I guess) but to brick the actual software is fucked.

I tried to make Fusion 360 run under wine and just couldn't get it reliably working.

There were problems logging in, problems with resolution, issues with fonts and DLL errors. It just wasn't stable enough to rely on.

It is fairly trivial to bypass the win11 upgrade requirements, if that is preferable to you.

Yeah it's annoying still, I have an 80gb partition I put windows on for work purposes, I told it to check for updates yesterday when I was signing off for work. It popped up with an option that said Security updates are ending Oct 14th, and a box to click to enroll for extended updates till Oct 14th, 2026. I clicked it and it said I was enrolled for another year. It's a sure sign they are trying to force people to move to Windows 11, but apparently they will be making the security updates all the same and not sending them to everyone by default.
- EU forced them to give another year in the EU. Elsewhere, people are out of luck.

Try https://github.com/TibixDev/winboat Haven't tried fusion but Photoshop works fine with it.

I used it some years ago. It "just worked," but later when I tried to install it again, it didn't. I probably could've made it work again, but I didn't actually need it badly enough to bother.

So yes and kinda no

https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=36468

You really shouldn't connect win10 machines to the Internet at some points. Legacy shit is fine and fun. But don't go shaking hands with danger.

@IMALlama Make some pressure to Autodesk or try alternatives.

Pressure them about what exactly? Making the product for Linux or extending Windows 10 support?
- @spitfire To support Linux because Windows are going worse.

welp, looks like I won't be using fusion when I inevitably need some design program on my personal computer again

It is getting forced.

You have VERY SHORT time until the day...

so DO IT NOW.

Spoiler: Win 11 will say it can't run on anything.

It's far easier to run Windows 11 on older hardware then getting random windows apps to ruin on Linux.

Cool? Not what is being asked tho
- If you open your mind a little it is kinda an answer :)
You know where else it's easy to run Windows 11? In a VM on Linux.