Prusa on Linux  

RE: Prusa on Linux

I have successfully compiled PrusaSlicer from the github sources on debian and ubuntu systems. Mint is close to those systems, so I guess the following instructions should work there as well.
https://github.com/prusa3d/PrusaSlicer/blob/master/doc/How%20to%20build%20-%20Linux%20et%20al.md

RE: Prusa on Linux

Why is there no more a simple AppImage, it did work in all distributions... 🤨 

RE: Prusa on Linux

The reason for no longer offering AppImages was explained here:

https://github.com/prusa3d/PrusaSlicer/releases/tag/version_2.9.0-alpha1

Scroll down to the heading "Linux: Distribution through Flathub"

RE: Prusa on Linux

Software like FreeCad is FAR more complex compare to Prusa and they solved it all...
Said it before : installing the the new Prusa versions I always get error messages.

Need to find me another slicer providing AppImages.

RE: Prusa on Linux

I think it is not a question of "how" but of "who", i.e. there are no PrusaSlicer maintainers for every linux distro out there. FreeCad is a standard package in every distro and there are maintainers for it.

RE: Prusa on Linux

The build instructions from github for PrusaSlicer work on Linux Mint. I tested this on a Proxmox VM with Mint 22.2 that I had updated to the latest packages. I just had to add the package "libtool" to the list of necessary build tools to install with apt-get (enter " libtool" after the package named "texinfo" on the last line). The rest worked flawlessly as in the instructions.

RE: Prusa on Linux

In a perfect world I'd like to see .deb and AppImage and Flatpak versions for every application. But I'd rather see more development put into Prusa Slicer than see them release a .deb version (or an AppImage version). If the Flatpak version isn't working well on your system... that might be more because of your system than because of Flatpak. 

RE: Prusa on Linux

Why is there no more a simple AppImage, it did work in all distributions... 🤨

You might also add:  'Why can't I use files from other machines on my network' and 'Why is it almost impossible to run post-processing scripts unless they're written in Python?'

There is a solution, sort of, below.

The file browser and net connectivity issues are due to using a packaging system (Flatpak) designed to compartmentalise software with maximum security. This was needed because AppImages couldn't easily handle the complexities of WebKit and its dependencies. Webkit was needed because Prusa had decided to integrate Printables downloads into the slicer in a manner hard to generalise in C. They are using C because they decided to get rid of all perl scripts. They decided to get rid of perl because - actually I have no idea why they decided to get rid of perl. Perl, of course, has libraries (Cpan) containing everything needed for high security, file browsing and integrating file downloads and runs happily on almost all Linux systems... 

I think it is not a question of "how" but of "who", i.e. there are no PrusaSlicer maintainers for every linux distro out there.

That was the other advantage of Perl, the Perl Monks make sure everything works the same on all implementations.

Flatpak turns neat, efficient, applications into behemoths and requires so much system resource that PrusaSlicer can no longer handle larger slicing tasks on my 16gb ram 'gaming' laptop...

So: I did manage to compile 2.9.0 from source, it's a chore and requires a messy set of libraries but it can be done...

But I don't want to slice from a my laptop and I have switched almost all of my general computing to a network of Raspberry Pi's - OK RPis  *can* run Flatpak but for them it's an even heavier overhead: and yes compiling from source can also be done on RPi, if any thing it's even more arcane but I managed it.

Then another version of PrusaSlicer was released with slightly different dependencies ... I was searching out the libraries when I discovered the, for me, ideal solution.

The solution: 

A user, Davidk, who is clearly better at Linux builds than me, posts RPi appimages a few days after every new release.

https://github.com/davidk/PrusaSlicer-ARM.AppImage/releases

So, if you have a Raspberry Pi, download and go.

Cheerio,