I would love to master this software
http://solidworks.wavecast.io/2016/live-stream
I’d love it to be released for Linux.
@Mark_Fraser Did yourself a favor, try Onshape. It was created by some of the founder of Solidworks (they know what they do), it works entirely in the Cloud (not a small task) and has some very particular features that make it worth a try such as the possibility for several people to work on the same model simultaneously “a la Google Doc”. And it’s maker friendly (free) if you’re wishing to share your models publicly. 
… And it works in the browser, hence the Linux friendliness (that the more important for what you looking for)!
@Mark_Fraser , SolidWorks will never be released for Linux. There are far too many Windows-only dependencies in the modules it’s built on.
OnShape is interesting, but for completeness, they are approximately where SolidWorks was about 1998 or so (but moving fast). Not that OnShape isn’t already useful for some applications…
I am trying it now and you can’t even import a part. Kind of useless
Solidworks needs to come out with a Maker version priced under $200.00 for hobbyists like ourselves
That would be nice, but they’d probably cripple it into uselessness. More interesting to me would be if they did that with their so-called “Mechanical Conceptual” tool. It’s (was?) platform independent and based on a very powerful modeling kernel (Dassault V6). It originally started development as the platform to eventually replace SolidWorks, but instead has been marketed as a (horribly overpriced) conceptual tool. It is better architected than SolidWorks, but not yet as complete. The hobbyist market would be a great community to help with development.
Either way, they’d have to figure out how to be competitive with OnShape’s price. If you happen to be a qualifying student, you can get SolidWorks pretty cheap with some interoperability limitations.
@John_Car ??? You sure can import from Solidworks, STEP or IGES with no problem. What format are you using?
Solidworks is fantastic. I had the awesome chance to get the student version free for 4 years when I was on a FIRST FRC team at my high school. I like Onshape but it’s not at the Solidworks level, I guess I prefer local modeling rather than the cloud. Also, I don’t necessarily want my models public.
I agree that Solidworks is great and much more mature with a whole ecosystem behind, but it’s f… expensive. Especially if you’re a maker and that fusion 360 is around the corner at no cost. I just found that Onshape fits the bill for me.