pcb design software recommedations?

What problems did you have? It should certainly work under Linux at least.

Well, I was using old Redhat 8, so I guess it isn't surprising... I spent a bit of time getting the required versions of the prerequisites in, then got a bunch of error messages (below) which probably will take too much more time to track down.

The problems with Cygwin/XP were a bit more surprising, given that there were instructions that seemed specific and clear, but they seem to be very out of date. There also seemed to be a problem in the build_pcb script setting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH that didn't include cygwin /usr/X11R6/lib/pkgconfig directory that seems important and some parts of the instructions that were out of date or didn't work for other reasons). I finally got stuck when it said "Cannot find gtk+ >= 2.4.0" when I thought it should find it. There seemed to be a lot of things that could go wrong getting it running under windows XP, so I figured it was probably going keep being a struggle and gave up. A pity there isn't a ready-to-install executable for Windows available with all the hard work done.

The best chance seems to be Linux, and in case the error rings a bell for somebody, here it s where I got up to...

make[4]: Entering directory `/usr/local/electronics/pcb-20070208p1/src' gcc -DNDEBUG -g -O2 -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/X11R6/include -Wall

-rdynamic -o pcb action.o autoplace.o autoroute.o buffer.o change.o command.o compat.o copy.o create.o crosshair.o data.o djopt.o draw.o drill.o error.o file.o find.o flags.o fontmode.o heap.o insert.o intersect.o line.o lrealpath.o main.o mirror.o misc.o move.o mtspace.o mymem.o netlist.o output.o parse_l.o parse_y.o polygon.o polygon1.o puller.o print.o rats.o remove.o report.o res_parse.o res_lex.o rotate.o rtree.o rubberband.o search.o select.o set.o strflags.o thermal.o undo.o vector.o vendor.o hid/common/actions.o hid/common/flags.o hid/common/hidinit.o hid/common/hidnogui.o hid/common/extents.o liblesstif.a liblpr.a libps.a libgerber.a libbom.a libpng.a -lXm -lXpm

-lXmu -lXt -lXext -lSM -lICE -lX11 -lfl -ldl

-lm -L/usr/X11R6/lib -L/usr/X11R6/lib -lXpm -lX11 -ljpeg

-lfontconfig -lfreetype -lpng -lz -lm -lgd libpng.a(libpng_a-png.o): In function `use_gc': /usr/local/electronics/pcb-20070208p1/src/hid/png/png.c:654: undefined reference to `gdImageSetThickness' /usr/local/electronics/pcb-20070208p1/src/hid/png/png.c:711: undefined reference to `gdImageFilledEllipse' libpng.a(libpng_a-png.o): In function `png_fill_rect': /usr/local/electronics/pcb-20070208p1/src/hid/png/png.c:770: undefined reference to `gdImageSetThickness' libpng.a(libpng_a-png.o): In function `png_draw_line': /usr/local/electronics/pcb-20070208p1/src/hid/png/png.c:787: undefined reference to `gdImageSetThickness' libpng.a(libpng_a-png.o): In function `png_draw_arc': /usr/local/electronics/pcb-20070208p1/src/hid/png/png.c:839: undefined reference to `gdImageSetThickness' libpng.a(libpng_a-png.o): In function `png_fill_circle': /usr/local/electronics/pcb-20070208p1/src/hid/png/png.c:850: undefined reference to `gdImageSetThickness' /usr/local/electronics/pcb-20070208p1/src/hid/png/png.c:852: undefined reference to `gdImageFilledEllipse' libpng.a(libpng_a-png.o): In function `png_fill_polygon': /usr/local/electronics/pcb-20070208p1/src/hid/png/png.c:876: undefined reference to `gdImageSetThickness' collect2: ld returned 1 exit status make[4]: *** [pcb] Error 1 make[4]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/electronics/pcb-20070208p1/src' make[3]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1 make[3]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/electronics/pcb-20070208p1/src' make[2]: *** [all] Error 2 make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/electronics/pcb-20070208p1/src' make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1 make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/electronics/pcb-20070208p1' make: *** [all] Error 2

Mark Aitchison sci.electronics.design news:469adb30$ snipped-for-privacy@clear.net.nz må 16 jul 2007 04:42:56:

Yes.

or

If you want free, KiCad has a native Windows version, and though I've never got on with it as a PCB design package other people seem to do well enough with it.

The linux one is easy. Configure with "--with-exporters=bom,gerber,ps" to disable the PNG exporter, which uses libgd.

And yeah, your linux is VERY old. Like, eight major versions old.

We're working on the windows build issues.

disable

Thanks for that - it did get the linux version going. Thanks, too, for the other suggested pcb programs (and still interested in more ones to try).

Mark.