Posted by micheletrecaffe3 on Sep 05, 2021; 2:09am
URL: https://forum.librecad.org/New-LibreCAD-is-IMPOSSIBLE-TO-USE-FOR-ACTUAL-WORK-tp5720966p5721003.html

HOW TO INSTALL AN OLDER VERSION OF LIBRECAD ON YOUR COMPUTER

I have to thank LordofBikes for showing me where LibreCAD keeps its archived versions:

          https://github.com/LibreCAD/LibreCAD/releases

The version I chose to install was 2.0.2., which I was able to download. That's step one.

Step two: unzip the software into the following location in Linux Mint/Ubuntu:

          /home/develop

Step three: rename the parent (highest-level) folder, from 'LibreCAD-2.0.2' to just plain 'LibreCAD'

Step four: open a terminal and execute the following instructions:

          sudo apt-get install g++ gcc make git-core qtbase5-dev libqt5svg5-dev\
          qttools5-dev qtchooser qttools5-dev-tools libmuparser-dev librsvg2-bin\
          libboost-dev libfreetype6-dev libicu-dev pkg-config

     These instructions will make sure your system is updated to Qt5,

Step five: open a terminal and execute the following instructions:

          cd /develop/LibreCAD
          sudo qtchooser -qt=qt5 -run-tool=qmake
          sudo qmake -r
          sudo make -j4

     These instructions will use Qt version 5 to compile LibreCAD on your machine.

Step six: It is very likely that the install will abort on the last instruction included in step five, with the message '/usr/include/c++/___/cstdlib:75:25: fatal error: stdlib.h: No such file or directory'. This is because of an error in Qt5 that causes the compiler to miss an essential library. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to this problem:

     6a. As root, open the following document in your favorite text editor:

          /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/mkspecs/common/

     6b. find the following line:

          QMAKE_CFLAGS_ISYSTEM        = -i-system

     6c. Replace ' -i-system' with '-I' (capital i) so that the full line reads:

          QMAKE_CFLAGS_ISYSTEM        = -I

     6d. Save the file and close.

Step seven: Re-run the last command from step five (sudo make -j4), which should now work as expected. This is a very time-heavy step and could take the better part of an hour but, at the end, you will have a fully functional LibreCAD install.

Step eight. Add an icon to your main menu. The one thing the above will not do is insert a menu item for LibreCAD in your main menu. Fortunately, there is an easy fix to that, too. Mint and Ubuntu both come with a pre-installed menu editor. Open this, click 'add', and create a new menu item with name 'LibreCAD' and the path to librecad.sh: /home[USER NAME}/develop/LibreCAD/unix/librecad, where 'USER NAME' is the name of your user folder under '/home'.

LibreCAD icons are found in: /home/[USER NAME}/develop/LibreCAD/desktop/graphics_icons_and_splash/Icon LibreCAD.

Once you've added these items to the menu item creator, click the 'save' button at the top of the menu and 'LibreCAD' will be added to your menu.