Importing CAD/CAM files

I have experiences working with CNC Routers and CNC Plasma; doing 2D designs and then generating tool-paths. But I have no experience on programming. I have tried to install several CAD/CAM software in Ubuntu but I always hit a brick wall when I need to do some programming in the install procedure. For example, Paycam: it requires me to install several Python packages, so I did; Then it requires me to enable the UNIVERSE REPOSITORY; to temporally add the KARMIC REPOSITORY????? It says something about doing this in ROOT???? I am totally lost here. Another example is Gcodetools: it says to "Unpack and copy all the files to the following directory /usr/share/inkscape/extensions/ and restart inkscape". Totally lost again! Some other software say something about “running on Wine for EMC users” ?????

Any ways….what I´m thinking of doing is to install a CAD/CAM software in another computer using Windows. It seems a lot easier for someone with no programming knowledge to do installs in Windows. So I will use CAD for 2D designs and CAM for generation toolpath in Windows and then import my file to use EMC2. Can I do this? What file formats can be imported with EMC2?

Thank you very much.
Carlos.

dedetc wrote:

So I will use CAD for 2D designs and CAM for generation toolpath in Windows and then import my file to use EMC2. Can I do this? What file formats can be imported with EMC2?

yes that's possible, I do it the same way.
EMC2 reads g-code. So you need a CAM tool which exports g-code.

Gerd

Thank you. I was able to add all the python requirements for PyCAM and enable Universe. But what to do next? I cannot find instructions or procedures to what should be done next to complete the install. I only see this: but as you might imagine, I don’t have a clue what this means? What do I do with it? How do I complete my install?

sudo apt-get install python-gtk2 python-gtkglext1 python-pyode python-opengl

but as you might imagine, I don’t have a clue what this means? What do I do with it? How do I complete my install?
By the way, how do I check what Ubuntu version I’m using? Or what EMC version I’m using?

Thanks again.

Thanks, any suggestions on a CAM tool that exports g-code for Windows?

here is a list of CAM programs, most are linux I guess, but some may have a win version:
wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/emcinfo.pl?Cam

Gerd

I know this will sound stupid to you but, where and how do I open a “terminal” to paste the line of code. And what do I do next to finish installing? Thank you.