Quote:
Originally Posted by gorillamonky
have you looked for a Linux version of inventor, people usually put them out, they use the same file system look the same and so on, yes a linux program will work with MAC, (MAC is based of Linux which is based of Unix and so on.
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Not the case. Apple uses the HFS+ file system, while Linux uses EXT3. Linux programs do not necessarily work on Mac, as there are major differences due to the different heritages of the operating systems. OS X is based on NeXTSTEP, which is a Unix/BSD-derived system (using the Mach kernel). Linux is an independently, openly-developed Unix-like system. Linux is Unix-like, OS X is Unix-derived, meaning that they are not inherently compatible.
EDIT: Also, the biggest difference to end users with Linux/Mac is the UI; OS X uses the proprietary interface that Apple developed, while Linux uses one of many desktop managers, including GNOME, KDE, and XFCE to name the three most popular (to my knowledge).
As far as compatibility goes (I don't know anything about actually using the software), there are several solutions that are available for OS X.
FreeCAD,
BRL-CAD,
QCAD, and
Form-Z all look like they could be used. There is no Unix-like version of Inventor, though. I'd suggest Bootcamp and either a demo version of Windows (borrow a CD from someone, just don't register it - that'll last for 30 days) or the Windows 7 beta, as stated above.