Use OpenCAMLib with Flatpak or AppImage

[swizzlakalongie]

Hi All,

preface: I know you require us to post the specifics of our build information and OS, but this question is about the Flatpak and AppImage builds, so those details won't be useful.

It took me several tries to get opencamlib working with an older pre-release version of Freecad 19 which came from the repos on my fedora machine. All was well until I upgraded FreeCad (just a regular dnf update && upgrade), but now the 0.19.2 version stopped working with opencamlib. In the report view, I don't get any message about "opencamlib not found", but the OCL operations such as Surface are missing from the workbench.

I've tried to get OCL working with a the flatpak version of freecad, but that one just never sees the OCL libraries whether i put them in the system or user libraries folders. The appimage seems to have the same problem.

Can you help me get OCL working with flatpak please? There's a carving that I really need to use the surfacing toolpath option on.

Any tips or explanations would bee appreciated.
Thanks.

[chrisb]

Do you have the experimental features enabled?
Do you have OCL enabled in the Perefereces->Path?

[swizzlakalongie]

Do you have the experimental features enabled?
Do you have OCL enabled in the Perefereces->Path?

Yes, I checked it after the upgrade and it was still enabled. I even disabled and re-enabled it just to check, but the OCL path options still don't show. Only 3D pocket is available. With experimental features enabled in the flatpak version, i never got it to work, it just always says OCL not found.

[herbk]

I use the AppImage since a long time now (because at OpenSuse (also rpm based) FC from the repo don't work), all experimental features work here.
If i remember right, a few month ago i had to install one or two additional python packetes...

[artelogic]

@Herbert: Do you remember which ones?

[swizzlakalongie]

I use the AppImage since a long time now (because at OpenSuse (also rpm based) FC from the repo don't work), all experimental features work here.
If i remember right, a few month ago i had to install one or two additional python packetes...

really. well that's good news. could you elaborate on that some more please?
How did you get it working ?

[swizzlakalongie]

Does the python or cmake version affect whether Freecad will recognize the OCL libs ?

[swizzlakalongie]

POSTING THE SOLUTION TO MY PROBLEM

Why flatpak + ocl won't work:

• Flatpak apps exist and run from within their own namespace. The /usr/lib in the flatpak namespace is not the same as the /usr/lib folder on your host system.

Why ocl + appimage or ocl + the fedora repo freecad didn't work:

• The upgrade included a change where you not only need to enable experimental features, but also check a checkbox under path module preferences, according to this thread https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=59259 . I didn't know about this change, so my OCL stopped working and I was trying to enable it using the old method that I used from before the change.

problem solved. back to milling.

[777Raim]

Hi there!

I just posted my instruction how to install and use OpenCamLib with Flatpak at another Topic. I hope it will useful.