Oh, minor update: I downloaded the "Debian" version of the Cycas package
(a plain gzipped tarfile; the alternative is a yucky .rpm for RedHat/SUSE)
and extracted it.  I didn't bother doing an "install" step, but rather ran
it in-place.

Between NetBSD's GNU/LINUX emulation and the SUSE libraries installed from
pkgsrce (for various and sundry things like Netscape), the Cycas 2.x demo
"just worked" on NetBSD.

However, having played with it some, I find it a bit frustrating.

I guess that I'm spoiled by MicroCADDS, AutoCAD, and the Amiga philosophy.
(Dual mouse & keyboard support.)  Cycas is purely mouse-driving, like a Mac
or MicroSoft product.  (There are some windows with keyboard entry options,
of course, but no command-line interface.  I was not able to see how to
create, e.g., a line from the end of one line and to/tangent-to a given
circle.  Ending on a circle, yes, but ending *tangent* to a circle, no,
other than eyeballing.)

I diddn't bother reading the docs, though.  (^&

The example drawings that come with the demo heavily favor architectural
drawing (buildings, interiors).  The limited CAD experience that I had in
the past was biased more towards part-drawing with  heavy reliance on
geometric construction (you *could* put freehand points, but more commonly
you either used a grid or used geometric references to existing elements).
My impression so far is that Cycas is about 80% technical/CAD and 20% artsy,
contrasted with MicroCADDS which I'd put at more like 95+% technical, or
the KDE tool which (from when I last used it a month or so back) I'd put
around 10-% technical.

(Such a 1-dimensional scale is a bit misleading; a really *good* package
could be quite useful both artistically and technically, I think.  I'm
more trying to convey the mix of the strengths for one use or another as
opposed to the relative merit between seperate packages...and, again, these
impressions are unequally gained and of unequal age, so take them with a
huge crystal of NaCl.)

(ramble)


-- 
  "I probably don't know what I'm talking about."  http://www.olib.org/~rkr/