good free PCB software

In sci.electronics.cad Jan Panteltje wrote: : On a sunny day (Wed, 29 Nov 2006 20:07:17 -0000) it happened Stuart Brorson : wrote in :

: : That said, I am downloading the 129MB ISO image and will check out what is :>: on it. :>: Probably will not work ;-) :>

:>Let us know if it doesn't. If it fails, please report the distro you :>are using along with including the Install.log file with your report. :>If you just e-mail the developers a note saying "I tried your :>installer and it failed. Why?" they will treat you like a two month :>old sandwich found in the back of the fridge. :>

:>Have fun! :>

:>Stuart

: See my other posting how it failed and your no clue about security.

1. You didn't specify your Linux distro as asked. I can't offer any advice if I don't know what distro you are using. FWIW, a bunch of install tips (distro specific) are available here:

1. You didn't read any of the supporting docs, which talk about this issue, and offer suggestions about what to do if you don't like giving the root password.

1. You shouldn't run the installer as root, as discussed clearly in the accompanying documentation.

2. You evidently don't have the time or patience to read the website since you are manifestly unable or unwilling to try any of the other installation methods.

1. You also have a bad attitude, at least in your postings, which suppresses any interest I might have in lending you a hand. One advantage (for the user/consumer) commercial software has over open-source is that the user can abuse the poor support slob when the sofware doens't work. As an open-source developer, I can walk away from cranky users.

2. GEDA, PCB, the install CD and the rest of the stuff is open-source software which presupposes a threshold of cluefulness and resourcefulness from its uses. Lots of people use it successfully. I guess you won't be one of them. Sorry!

I remain interested in hearing from other users who have install or usage problems. Please don't forget to supply details about your distro and what you tried before things went south. Indeed, I wonder what Ivan -- the OP -- ended up using for his free EDA stuff, and if he tried gEDA.

Stuart

Hmmm. Has another week passed already?

*+insubject:free+insubject:PCB+insubject:software

No one has mentioned KiCAD yet in this thread:

*-use-Kicad+look-at-gEDA+qq-qq+*-*-flexibility-of-an-open-design-flow-suite+well-established-*-*-*-*-*-community+*-*-*-*-fully-integrated-suite+well-documented

On a sunny day (Wed, 29 Nov 2006 20:54:11 -0000) it happened Stuart Brorson wrote in :

Look buster, read the thread again. Bye.

I was not posting a bug report, but if you have half a clue you can get a long way understanding you need to revise a lot. plonk

Not yet, but it is definitely on the wish list.

Loads of options.

Yes.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen (but in Sydney at the moment)

stuff,

well,

I've been reinstalling gEDA for years too. The process got a lot easier a few years ago, when they put together a CD-sized collection of source files and make files that automatically compiles the whole package on your computer. Worked fine for me under SuSE 10.0, and they monitor it's perfromance on a bunch of other popular distributions.

Once installed, the package can be used to do serious work - check out the mailing list.

There is a learning curve, as there is with every circuit design program, but it does seem to be surviveable.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen (but in Sydney at the moment, and gEDA-less)

:

software

that stuff,

fixed..... well,

Well, I installed gEDA. I wanted to see whether gEDA is "good enough," and also to see if my comment about "you get what you pay for" is true. (I already know that it's not, because I depend on Subversion and Apache.) Also, I really want to do as little in Windows as possible; I've got a new Mac Book Pro in addition to the eMac and a G4 so clearly Mac OS X is my preferred platform.

I started with the fink packages

I haven't been using fink because for me, it hasn't been necessary (I was able to build Subversion and Apache from source), but the sheer number of packages and potential dependency issues are daunting. So I downloaded fink from installed it, ran the update and then did a fink install geda-bundle. The download started, I was asked some questions (and chose the default answers, 'cause I had no idea otherwise), and it started downloading, configuring and make-ing. After awhile it was done, and I typed gschem from an xterm prompt, and voila, the schematic tool started. I type pcb from the xterm and the PCB tool started.

Looks like there's a bunch of decent footprints in the PCB library. I'll have to make my own schematic library, as I like to select a part from the library and have it know the footprint and a valid vendor part number (useful when generating the BOM). So there's some playing around to do.

I suppose I should be happy that the damn thing built and installed, which is usually an arcane process fraught with peril.

-a

I think I asked myself that exact question when I committed some changes to my subversion repository, which is served by apache ...

So scratch that statement.

-a

This is the well known "heavy vs light symbols" debate, and there are pros and cons to each side.

Me, I use gattrib to fill in the footprints and ordering info. Gattrib is a spreadsheet-like tool that manages the information stored in all the symbols in all your schematic pages, and it's a lot easier to manage the data that way than to put it in the individual symbols (either when you create them, or as you edit the schematic).

I pull the BOM from the schematics (gattrib's info) too. There's a BOM exporter in PCB too, but the footprints in PCB can't hold as much info as the schematics. The PCB BOM exporter is used more for driving pick and place machines.

It *might* work for him; I tried 4 different times, different versions - they either failed to install, or when installed were completely impossible to use for any purpose except give a decorative screen.

These days, most software doesn't keep any longer than that sandwich.

Jeroen Belleman (Sick and tired of 'upgrading')

You're telling me he isn't?

On a sunny day (Thu, 30 Nov 2006 10:07:11 +0000) it happened Paul Burke wrote in :

Just as an aside, nobody is 'evil' or at least not more or less then anybody else in that contexts. Although it maybe right some people / companies got pestered / swallowed / put out of bussines, etc.. by Gates ULTD, at least for me when I started using Linux it had nothing to do with that. The reason was (about Linux 0.9 IIRC) that it had a free compiler (as in beer), did not have a silly memory limit as MS DOS had (times of win 3.1 build on MS DOS), and was free on top of that, and I liked Unix more. It did mean I had to write almost every application I needed myself though. Some did exist, some did but then did not work.. I would not expect these to exist.

Much later came the open source advocacy, and along with Linux came people who _demanded_ you added functionality to the apps you did put out as open source but actually wrote for yourself. I _did_ get an email almost exactly like this: 'You program sucks because it is spelled NewsFleX and that is to difficult to type for me, and I do not like the GUI either'. In those times I was polite and may have replied use a ln -s q NewsFleX, so you only have to type 'q'.

These days I frankly tell them to go to you know where. Somebody just emailed me the mpeg1 movies made with my multiplexer play OK on all Linux players, but not MS mediaplayer. I wrote back it was difficult to test for me (I have no recent MS software, let alone mediaplayer), but that it was MS sabotage. Then I was told it was so easy to have a scapegoat. But hey should I install Vista to see of it will run my movies? That is sort of defeating the purpose of why I use Linux in the fist place. So I still have top make a politically correct follow up reply to that one, but I did insert twice the word 'perhaps' in my original reply. Now with the Novell / MS deal and Balmer accusing Linux of violating patents, I do not even want Vista in a one mile range, even if it came for free (as in beer) with free hardware for the bloat.

Brorson

what is

I haven't had the time to try anything yet... here they use only Windows... tried to talk them into linux but without success... however I bookmarked the link for my personal use... will look into it in the future

thanks ivan

gEDA runs on windows and mac too.

[snip]

[snip]

It is possible that your -ah- "personalized" Linux may have problems installing some software that don't occur with more standard distributions. ISTM that when you have that degree of personalization that you have to accept some additional problems with installing new software. Speaking as someone that runs Debian, installing geda and cohorts is as ridiculously simple as installing anything else, and has been for some time.

As far as lacking back-annotation, you are completely right - the geda web site clearly notes this as an existing deficiency.

-f

A lot of big installs like that are arcance processes fraught with PERL...

Try kicad at

It is very good, completely free and work both on Windows and Linux.

Ian

Paul Burke wrote

Joel Kolstad wrote:

Jan Panteltje wrote:

Heh. That's a good one. Now tell us the one about The Three Bears.

Surely your memory is not that short. See if any of these ring a bell: Gary Kildall, Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds.

As for Bill Gates:

*-*-*-*-vs-Microsoft+the-case+court&num=100 Specifically *-Penfield-*+Findings-of-Fact

On a sunny day (30 Nov 2006 11:15:09 -0800) it happened "JeffM" wrote in :

I am under the impression that many 'leaders of the free software blah blah' run this as a business. Just like the green politicians make money, these are politicians too. The issue with software is that you write it. It is possible to write a 1000 page book about a 100 line C program. Even more then one book. And people will buy it, spend month reading it, and say AHHHH and OOOOOH. You can make politics with it, and make a good living from that. Sell space for conferences about it, the works. Others will write the 100 lines of C code themselves, and save lots of time. Human species, the 'character' is a variable, although for many it may be fixed at some point in youth, it can be altered. The potential is for all men to be able to be a beast or a saint. So if you call Gates 'evil' then you are merely pointing out a facet that may very well be somewhere manifest in you too. That brings us to the question what is good and bad. That what is really good is happiness happening within us. I could image that Bill Gates left MS perhaps just to get aways from the demonising done by others. Remember in the evolution US committed genocide on the native Americans, we in Europe possibly did the same with 'Neandertalers'. The right of the strongest. There is nothing wrong with evolution and fighting. So, with all that 'character', make belief, illusions employed, an uncertain outcome for the human species, the _only_ thing that counts is how much of the time you can be happy. Your efficiency in percent is: 100 x days_happy / days_lived. And it does not matter if kill or let live, fight or live in peace. What does matter is that you find how the inner workings of your brain are and chose happiness. Do meditation.

So, as to the software, I wrote my programs because I needed the functionality, for study, for fun. Gate did the same, wrote a simple BASIC IIRC. He just knows how to make $$$ with it, so let him, it is a free world, capitalism, I chose not to pay him those $$$, use Linux and write what I need. What Torvalds and others do I really do not care a lot, our vision on DRM is different. I have written 2 operating systems, a CP/M clone (in that time) and a windowing multitasker. If Linux goes in a direction that I find not agreeable I will write my own. For now it does what I need, server, communication, plays my TV and videos, not even need for faster hardware. I hope to get a Sony PS3 next year (March announced in Europe) and run Linux on it. Already there is Linux available for it now. That will up my speed and resolution to HDTV, give me blue ray playback all for

499 Euro. Goodbye PC, that thing (Cell processor) can run as server too, looks better then the beige box.... But it is also easy to write a small multitasker and run on one of the Cell co-processors. It is a free world, and you can choose. Balmer is not dictating anything, he may think he does, but as long as there is competition he is always in danger of going belly up, I have seen big companies make big losses. The original idea of an 'operating system' was to make a standard interface for software to talk to the hardware, provide some basic functions. Both MS windows and Linux are getting a bit bloated, a lot actually, and not always better. The hardware will be getting faster....but power consumption should go way down. Pro of Linux is that you can run it small, I have it on a USB memory stick too. Try that with Vista? So Balmer will face a formidable challenge. Fight for survival.