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Fast-forward 3 years, and FreeCAD is over the version 1.0 hump and the topo-problem has been resolved.  Seems many are still finding it hard to use effectively; perhaps a generational-gap between traditional (geometric) CAD and modern (parametric) CAD.

For 2.5D work from traditional CAD, take a look at QCAD-CAM:  www.qcad.org/en/products/qcad-cam
A quick CAM tutorial:  www.qcad.org/doc/qcadcam/QCADCAM_Tutorial_en.pdf

These pages really don't show off all the features and capability... QCAD is the mothership of the illegitimate LibreCAD; a full-featured (paid) CAD package which should be familiar to anybody with old-school CAD experience.  Free trial version available, reasonable cost / you own it, no cloud, no locks.  Import/export .DXF and many other common formats; has layers, line styles, hatching, blocks, extensive snaps / geometry / tools, dimensions, etc.  With the CAM add-on, there are like 50 pre-defined gcode export styles, including MACH and LinucCNC in both metric and imperial.  It also has an ECMAScript (JavaScript) post-processor that can further tweak the gcode to your heart's content: qcad.org/en/92-qcad-cam  It has an active user forum, with currently 43k posts and seven languages supported.

I'm gonna revive this thread as I'm running into the exact same issue as Ikavan describes.

My g-code files are stored on a Samba and when I open a file from the share in LinuxCNC (Probe Basic in my case) it gets locked.

If it would be possible to add a configuration flag in the INI file or somewhere else that makes LinuxCNC load the file to RAM and then close it to prevent locking I'd pay 200$ without hesitation.

Next step would be to add "Reload" button in the GUI to reload the currently open file. The would save a lot of time during the iterative process of testing new g-code programs.