Four drawing programs
Quickly Sketched
© Lead Image © David Castillo Dominici, 123RF.com
Organization charts, UML drawings, breadboard sketches, or plans for the new website – a drawing program is always the first port of call when you need to create a schematic diagram. We present four candidates for the Linux desktop.
Sketches, charts, and other diagrams visualize correlations in software development, break down complex operations into individual steps, or highlight controls in technical manuals for the reader. Artistic quality is not necessarily the aim in such business graphics. Quick results and easy handling of the drawing software are far more important.
In this article, we review four drawing programs that will benefit office users, scientists, programmers, and others. Our lab team tested how well suited the candidates were for quickly producing drawings without demanding requirements. The candidates were Inkscape [1], which also has some artistic ambitions; the drawing tools from the two large office suites, LibreOffice Draw [2] and Calligra Karbon [3]; and the simple Python program sK1 [4].
Inkscape
The first candidate is licensed under the GPLv2 and, according to the developers, specializes in two-dimensional vector graphics. Inkscape is available for Linux, Windows, and OS X; the testers looked at the current version 0.91 from January 2015.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
EndeavorOS Mercury Neo Available
A new release from the EndeavorOS team ships with Plasma 6.3 and other goodies.
-
Fedora 42 Beta Has Arrived
The Fedora Project has announced the availability of the first beta release for version 42 of the open-source distribution.
-
Dash to Panel Maintainer Quits
Charles Gagnon has stepped away as maintainer of the popular Dash to Panel Gnome extension.
-
CIQ Releases Security-Hardened Version of Rocky Linux
If you're looking for an enterprise-grade Linux distribution that is hardened for business use, there's a new version of Rocky Linux that's sure to make you and your company happy.
-
Gnome’s Dash to Panel Extension Gets a Massive Update
If you're a fan of the Gnome Dash to Panel extension, you'll be thrilled to hear that a new version has been released with a dock mode.
-
Blender App Makes it to the Big Screen
The animated film "Flow" won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature at the 97th Academy Awards held on March 2, 2025 and Blender was a part of it.
-
Linux Mint Retools the Cinnamon App Launcher
The developers of Linux Mint are working on an improved Cinnamon App Launcher with a better, more accessible UI.
-
New Linux Tool for Security Issues
Seal Security is launching a new solution to automate fixing Linux vulnerabilities.
-
Ubuntu 25.04 Coming Soon
Ubuntu 25.04 (Plucky Puffin) has been given an April release date with many notable updates.
-
Gnome Developers Consider Dropping RPM Support
In a move that might shock a lot of users, the Gnome development team has proposed the idea of going straight up Flatpak.