Bottom Line Up Front: This post provides a how-to install SketchUp Make 2017 in Linux using Wine. The result is fully function with everything I tested, including the "sketchup-webhelper.exe" program. Installation is time consuming, but woth it.
Background: Recently, due to COVID, I have found myself down the YouTube rabbit hole and interested in traditional hand-tool woodworking. It is interesting. A common tool people use is Sketchup to create to scale 3-d models for their projects. I was disappointed to learn that it does not have a Linux version and there is no TRUE alternative to Sketchup in Linux. I tried an alternative first then gave up and tried sketchup after a quick YouTube tutorial to get me over the short learning curve for basic usage. I decided that Sketchup was fantastic and worth using.
The options I had were:
1. Use a different program. The closest native program was FreeCAD; however, the learning curve is quite steep. I already said it was not intuitive for me. It does have some features that Sketchup doesn't; however, I will return to learn it if/when I need that capability.
2. Boot into Windows to install / run there. That is OK, but my primary useage and programs are in Linux, so it is a bit inconvenient to do that. Still, my dual boot session does have it installed.
3. The Web version of SketchUp worked fine; however, once the trial period expires, the functionality is more limited than the SketchUp Make 2017 free version. I also did not see myself using Sketchup enough to justify a subscription.
4. Try using WINE to install and run SketchUp Make 2017. WINE works and I do keep it installed on my computer. Heck, I use it for some of my older windows programs and games but not everything works flawlessly in Wine. For that reason, I try to stick with native Linux software.
Given the choices I had, I opted to try WINE. The project keeps improving and getting better all the time and programs that used to fail suddenly start working sometimes.
My initial search for using Sketchup Make under Wine looked promising. Some posts said it was garbage (people to try the standard install and quit if the installation software fails). Some posts said it installed but some items didn't work. I did fine one that said it worked flawlessly. I set out to install SketchUp Make 2017 and it was a tough start. I had errors from the start trying to get it installed and I spent hours upon hours between my primary computer and a second computer. I was successful and everything works in my installation with minor exceptions. Here is a screen shot of Sketchup in Linux running with the 3D Warehouse and Plugin Warehouse visibly running.
This BLOG post is to share my success installing the program in an effort to make it less tedious for you, as it is a tedious process to begin with. I did post my results at WINEhq.org; however, it won't be long before my notes are hidden and people don't look at my post. Hopefully Google will pick this post up in their search engine.
When finished, what works?:
Everything I have tested. That includes the SketchUp Warehouse part of the program ( sketchup-webhelper.exe ). . A quick list of most items I have tested:
- Installation
- Drawing Tools
- Plug-ins (Most... although the plugin from Sketucation website did not work... but plugins from there were downloaded and installed (Fredo6 series primarily).
- Opening
- Saving
- Editing
Up front, this process takes a while, but it is worth it. If you try and run the installation file, it will fail on its own. It took me well over 8 hours and a few different attempts to get a near-flawless installation for the software. The following steps should work. I am using Ubuntu Linux 20.04 LTS and my instructions are based on that. If you are using a different distribution your packages may be named different.
1. Preparation:
Before you install anything, I recommend you head over to www.sketchup.com and click login. Create a Tremble account. That is necessary because Sketchup Make 2017 no longer supports other password validation options.
Getting started you should have installed Winetricks and Wine (32 & 64 bit versions). The specific software versions I used for your reference. These were all installed from my default Linux repository.
- Linux: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
- Wine 5.0.3 (from repository)
- Wine Tricks: 0.0+20200412-1 (from repository)
* For your information, my initial attempt was using "Play On Linux." Play on Linux did not work easily and when I did get it installed using Play on Linux, the installation had issues as many other reports indicated.
NOTE:
For a couple steps, WineTricks did not re-open so you may need to 'restart' WineTricks... but give it a little while as some steps run in background take a few minutes.
You will get a lot of warnings because it is a 64 bit arch... but those are OK. WineTricks is just telling you (excessively) that things may not work as expected in 64-bit software.
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