So i have a 3D printer, and i have linux on a laptop but im struggling to find good 3D print-related software to use on linux or maybe i havent looked hard enough? Im pretty much a beginner to both linux And 3d printing, also using Ubuntu Mate if that matters on a old thinkpad.
So i need a 3d print slicer/way to print to my printer, i also need a simple 3d modeling software (ive tried blender but found it too hard and heavy for me and my laptop). It would help if all suggested software were open source or something like that.
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OctoPrint provides a snappy web interface for controlling consumer 3D printers. It is Free Software and released under the GNU Affero General Public License V3.
Its website can be found at octoprint.org.
I only do technical CAD design, so FreeCAD works fine. It’s no AutoDesk, but it has gotten good for my project scale.
Slicing is done with Cura.
Printing I’m mostly living off copying to SD card like a barbarian, but I’ve used Octoprint on a Raspberry Pi board in the past. I even had the time lapse camera videos working. It was a nice setup.
Some of my kids do more advanced sculpture work with Blender and other tools.
I’m running a flatpak version of Orca Slicer on Kubuntu 24.04. Personally, just prefer Orca after trying out a couple others. Found that it worked under Mint, and the 24.04 versions of Ubuntu and Kubuntu. Newer distros using Wayland instead of X11 seemed to have issues (which some people running Cura or Prusa slicers saw as well). Not everyone, but plenty of folks had software lock up at startup, or the build plate preview would just be a blank page. Might be a video driver problem, possibly depending upon if you use nvidia or AMD. I couldn’t find any real answers.
If there’s a slicer you prefer, you may have to find a Linux distro that it works under. Or if you are running a distro you’re sticking with, try slicers until you get one that runs. It seems to be hit or miss for people without any good reason for what does and doesn’t work.
Orca has an appimage I’ve been using that prints well over wifi. I’ve picked up FreeCAD to start learning, but I’m told the learning curve is ridiculous compared to F360 and other non-CAD modeling programs.
It’s been a while since I needed to do this, but Blender had some viewport quality settings I tweaked on an old laptop years ago to smooth things out (if you haven’t already tried). It might have been the anti-aliasing settings…
FreeCAD isn’t terrible if you haven’t already learned F360
I had to watch a bunch of videos on FreeCAD to sorta unlearn the work flow of F360 stuff but its not bad.
Every slicer I’m aware of runs on Linux. I’ve got PrusaSlicer and slic3r installed right now. Cura is on Flathub. Hell, Simplify3D does or did offer a Linux version, though it was one of those janky .run installers where they translate the Windows install process as literally as possible to Linux.
As for modeling software, depends on what kind of modeling. I tend to use FreeCAD, but it’s mostly suitable for engineering and not art.
it’s been a while, but ill try to contextualize some of the great suggestions here. i use cura to slice, then octoprint through usb to actually control and interface with the printer. there are many good slicers, octoprint is the standard for most printers unless you have something odd or too proprietary.
blender has a CAD mode or some plugin that makes it much easier to use for certain 3d printing applications, a bunch like autodesk, just not quite as refined. that’s what i sometimes use when i need it. openscad and a couple other foss options that run on linux work but aren’t very intuitive or easy to use, trust me.
as a last resort running other established windows software could work on wine with a bit of banging around, but may or may not be that simple to setup. those tend to be much heavier than foss apps though, so if your computer is already struggling you will have a worse time.
my suggestion is to first and foremost confirm if 3d acceleration and stuff is enabled and working in blender and nothing overheats or anything, it shouldn’t be that hard to run on a regular laptop made in the last decade for simple beginner stuff. it’s worth trying to get it to work just because it’s the best option on linux imho, and not that hard once you grasp the basics.
and yeah software discoverability is not that great on linux, but we got you.
I was new to 3d around 4years ago, and even newer to Linux.
Fusion is often mentioned but I prefer Onshape. Fusion isn’t just a simple download and install (even on windows its a pain), but Onshape runs in the browser so I can use it on ANY PC, ans its never struggled.
The tools in both are pretty much the same, sometimes with different names. Theres plenty of onshape tutorials online, and the help pages are good.
For the free version of Onshape you can have unlimited files, but they are technically available publically. Other onshape users can search and use them, but unless your planing on selling them or use it for work who cares.
Fusion brought in a limit a while ago for free accounts to have like 10 “active” documents.
You can also start with Tinkercad online, but once you learn Fusion/Onshape and parametric design its much better.
If your into writing code you can use scad on linux. Its an interesting way to design but I can see its benefits.
For a slicer Orca has been fine on linux. Not sure if it works with printers outside Bambu.
Most slicers work natively on Linux. I’ve used orca slicer and lychee in just past 24h.
As for modeling software freecad, blender obviously; onshape is browser based, so it should work; fusion360 is hard to get running, but from what I’ve heard it’s doable;
SOLIDWORKS can run in wine, but just barely - I’ve found it easier and more pleasant to run it in a windows vm
Orcaslicer hands down.
For 3d modelling software, they all suck or have an unreasonable cost for what they offer. Openscad is something at least.
Freecad is my daily driver and it’s pretty usable. Recently, it’s improved a lot, to the point it is now just mildly annoying.
Is that improvement past the 1.0 release? That update was great but it still needs some work and unfortunately I’m not the right kind of programmer to help either.
I tried a snapshot release a few weeks ago, there are new features, but nothing too significant for me. I’m mostly running a stable 1.0 release, but 1.1 should be released very soon, we’ll see if it’s a big jump, like 1.0 was. Still a long way to go tbh, especially in terms of QoL improvements. I’m talking - why is it so hard to just extrude some text. Why browse for a .ttf file in 2026? Things like that.
For creating models: Blender is tops, openSCAD and Open CAD are good but a lot more technical.
For basic stuff, most slicers have objects and negative connects that you can sculpt I’ve something functional. I made a basic model last week for a thing I needed only in the slicer.
For slicer software: sometimes 3d printer brands customize a more common software to tune it to the specific machine. I’m a fan of Orca, but Cura and PrusaSlicer are also really good.
All of these are available as FOSS on Linux.
Prusa slicer, orcaslicer, I’ve used both on Linux, runs native.
Prusa slicer was in the repos, orca slicer I had to download the app image.
Also openscad, freecad, also work for 3d modeling and should be in your distro’s repositories.
IMHO the best slicer is orcaslicer, which works fine on Ubuntu as an appimage. On other distros i used distrobox to create an ubuntu box and then start the appimage.
What do you like about orcaslicer? I’ve mostly just used Cura because it was the first one I picked up and it seemed to work fine.
Cura was also the first one i used, but it was a creality branded shitshow of a program. So i found orca slightly after that and now use it ever since. I love the inbuilt filament calibration tools and especially, that i can control my printer directly from the slicer, to e. G. stop a job i sent too hastily or something.
I usually use FreeCAD for creating models for 3D printing. It’s well suited for the technical/practical designs I do. For sculptures Blender is the better choice.
Some have gotten fusion 360 working via wine: https://github.com/cryinkfly/Autodesk-Fusion-360-for-Linux
Blender is Linux native, and it’s great for sculptures- not as great for making parts CAD style, but you can make it work: https://www.blender.org/download/
Cura seems to have native Linux support: https://linuxvox.com/blog/cura-linux/
Prusa slicer is also Linux native: https://www.prusa3d.com/page/prusaslicer_424/
Octoprint is of course Linux native, and I use it from a docker container. Can also work well from a pi. https://octoprint.org/
I use Fusion 360 + Cura + Octoprint myself, but I’m on mac. It’s really only the CAD software that I can’t recommend a native solution personally, but I have heard of a number of these: https://itsfoss.com/cad-software-linux/
Good luck!!
Cura’s a fantastic slicer, but kindof a terrible program. They gave up on ARM support a while ago. And their dependency situation is majorly out of control. To the point that Gentoo has literally given up on supporting it and maintaining a working package.
I’ve used Cura in Linux, can confirm it worked fine for me.
