any PCB software for UNIX ? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: legacy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2014, 04:10:36 pm
content: hi therei need 200x100mm 2 layers PCB so i have already bought my first Personal Eagle License (~ $150) in order to use Eagle on linux/PC platform (and, in case, the same license can be used on Windows and MacOSX), also i bought an old fashion SGI Unix workstation O2+ with IRIX in order to use a licensed version of Alias & Maya software; googling i have foundAutotrax/Easytrax's article which are teaching me about a great PCB software for DOS, so … i wander if there is a sort of such PCB application for Irix, or other commercial'90 ages Unix, too.It may be nice/pretty/foolish to have it on my Irix box, toop.s.any Autotrax/Easytrax user here ? In the article they are telling you can use this program for free inside a "dosBox" session (dosBox is an open source application able to emulate a whole x86 PC running DOS, in case … you can download binary or sources for your platform, too): unfortunately AutoTrax & EasyTrax are missing the schematic's application, so they are just PCB only application, so … you need to export/import the net list, never done it, i do not know if it is really possible and how hard it may bein case, is the Orcad Draft (the schematic's application release in '90 for Dos) able to export the right net list ? If you are an old user (or old fashion addicted, like me) you can remember this kind of software and provide me a good suggestion or just tricksp.s.2what do you think aboutEalge Cad? Do you preferPCB Express? Or other open source/commercial program ? in case any suggestion is welcome, also .. i need a good training course to produce my PCBs; again, any suggestion and links to material is much more than welcome

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2014, 04:32:12 pm
content: The only one that comes to mind that the engineers used in the 90's was Allegro from Cadence, but it's one of those pieces of software that if you must ask the price, you can't afford it. (Unless you got it at university pricing and it was probably still very expensive).It did everything and it seems still does, not sure if they ever supported SGI workstations (But I recall our engineers having SGI machines but older than your O2+). But it seems they are dropping support for unix flavors according to their current road maphttp://www.cadence.com/support/computing/Pages/default.aspxyou can always use gEDAhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEDAOr KiCad but the nomenclature they use will just confuse the hell out of you, or worse, you might adopt their naming conventions and then no one would understand what you are saying, unless they are kicad users themselveshttp://www.kicad-pcb.org/display/KICAD/KiCad+EDA+Software+SuitePeople say it's easy to learn, but to me you are learning the wrong terms even if it does the job.Edit:I love Eagle Cad. For $170 you can do 6 layers up to 16 by 10 centimeters. (As long as it's not for commercial use)I've heard great things about Altium designer, but it's expensive.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2014, 05:01:10 pm
content: Quote from: legacy on March 23, 2014, 04:10:36 pmPCB Express is controlled by a PCB manufacturer. Before you use it, make sure you are not locked to their service.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2014, 05:12:44 pm
content: QuoteHow about running a Windows simulator on Unix? From within windows, you can run DOS. Once in DOS, you can run Tango, my favorite PCB software.Seriously, the answer boils down to1) do you want to design PCB?2) how difficult do you want make your life difficult in designing PCB?

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2014, 05:23:58 pm
content: Most Unices will run Dosbox natively, so allowing you to get rid of the bloat of another virtualisation.

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2014, 05:49:41 pm
content: As far as I know, gEDA, KiCad and Eagle stand out the most on Linux platform.Eagle is quite buggy on my system (using propriatary ATI drivers though); image often glitches out and I seem to get all kinds of artifacts. As mentioned more often on this forum; the way Eagle is operated also seems like coming from just after the DOS era. Absolutely horrendous UI.I haven't worked much with Kicad or gEDA. If I would pick out of the 2, I would probably pick KiCad because it at least provides some meaningful data while routing boards (like net names) and seems OK. Not sure what to think about gEDA..Altium designer is a nice tool, but there is no Linux build. You would have to run it in Wine or a virtual machine. The support of Altium in Wine isn't spectacular, still plenty of issues & work to be done in Wine:http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=2799Running a Virtual Machine isn't an all-solver; as VMware Player nor Virtualbox offer splendid directX support (well.. not on my system, although I regret running an ATI/AMD graphics card). This means that you have to resort to legacy GDI+ support, which seems to be quite buggy and slow, and has no 3D support.I would say running a CAD program in DOSbox in the year 2014 is anything but sane.Because of all these reasons above, I (still?) use Windows for PCB design.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2014, 06:20:37 pm
content: Quote from: hans on March 23, 2014, 05:49:41 pmTry Mac OSX. It has a nice unix feel to it, shell, command line tools, etc, great hardware and great UI. I am doing all my hobby hardware and software development on a small 11" Max OSX notebook and it works just fine (using Eagle, Arduino, gcc, avrdude, git, Python, Java, Eclipse, etc).

author: dfmischler
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2014, 06:30:18 pm
content: A few years ago, I designed a few PCBs using the Linux version of Eagle 5.11 under the Linux emulator on FreeBSD (because I could). It was a pain installing the appropriate Linux libraries to get it to work, but it wasn't particularly difficult.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2014, 11:24:44 pm
content: Quote from: legacy on March 23, 2014, 04:10:36 pmI have used Autotrax + Orcad in a very distant past. On DOS that is with Win3.11 to switch back and forth between the diagram and PCB layout. Regarding PCB software for Unix: there probably are some high-end packages out there. You can probably get Kicad to compile for your box. I wouldn't recommend using Geda + PCB: In my experience PCB is a very limited piece of software and in Geda it takes forever to add all the required 'properties' to a part.

author: jancumps
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 23, 2014, 11:52:31 pm
content: I'm using KiCad on unix for a few years now. Only recently (2 weeks) I switched to the nightly builds (ignoring the AmpHour rants on doing so).Since then I'm out of businessThe PvPCB tool stopped working and downgrading to latest stable unix distro didn't help

author: legacy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2014, 11:53:13 pm
content: yes, i can recompile Kicad for IRIX, i have gcc&C on it, just wandering if any good PCB software is existing for- AIX- HPUX- IRIX

author: legacy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2014, 11:57:06 pm
content: Also, it may be modernProteus v7/v8(for Windows XP) is also good for PCB.I do not know, never experimented yet, but i got a demo version which i will install, sooner or later =P

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2014, 04:34:59 am
content: Quote from: legacy on March 23, 2014, 11:53:13 pmCadence Allegro suite like I mentioned before, other than not sure about IRIX but I swear our engineers used SGI machines but can't find any reference on the net. I do know they did support AIX and HPUX, but we are talking 20 years ago so my memory on what systems they used is kind of faded. I know they were working on a video system that used 4ns dual ported video memory way back then, just 64 MB and just those chips cost more than a house back then.Then again at north of $70K per seat nowadays, unless you find an old license or a system with it already installed you are out of luck, but it could do thermal, mechanical, timing and all kinds of simulations. More layers that you can wrap your head around and yeah, they did bought OrCad but as I see it, it's their red headed stepchild so it might get merged with Allegro.If you have university connections maybe you can get a cheap seat, but this is what Nvidia,Intel,Yamaha,IBM,etc.. use for their high speed stuff, ASIC, SoC, etc.. I never used it, since I was just a programmer but I saw how our engineers raved about it back in the 90's. I can't even imagine to what level they are now over 20 years later. And also since a lot of chips have come on those 20 years you might want the up to date one.I'm happy with Eagle on my PC but I always think about what it would be like to use that, it was cool then and even the old versions are probably better than the new stuff by other vendors, but they have continued improving (I will hope).For anything over 5GHz and I've heard that it can design 50GHz systems, it's the only player in town.

author: legacy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2014, 12:14:46 pm
content: Quote from: miguelvp on March 24, 2014, 04:34:59 amexactly like i did! i have bought a whole system equipped with- mathematica v5.2 (useful for the electronic package, it looks like pspice but it is much more powerful)- Alias- Maya- Catia (useful for mechanical FEM's analysis)- Illustrator- Photoshopthe whole for $300 shipped! Great because i have professional hardware and software without the need of crack nothing! I hate crack programs.For electronic stuff (Eagle/Orcad/PCBexpress, LTspice/Pspice) i am using a common PC, with Linux/Windows installed.

author: poorchava
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2014, 02:31:33 pm
content: DipTrace?

author: legacy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2014, 08:42:57 pm
content: I have downloaded a free version of DipTrace! Thank you, it seems pretty !p.s.googling i have foundbaear

author: legacy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2014, 10:00:30 pm
content: reviewed by EEVBLOG

author: mark03
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 01, 2014, 04:51:49 pm
content: Re: KiCAD and gEDA, I have designed several boards using gEDA (gschem and pcb) and am currently learning KiCAD (eeschema and pcbnew). My take:gEDA is more "unix-y" and KiCAD is more "Windows-ish." I do not refer to ease of use; both are a pain to learn and there seems to be a universal law somewhere that when writing CAD software, all accepted norms and conventions of user interaction must be thrown out the window and you must make it arcane and difficultBut the OS mindset shows through. In short, if Ubuntu is the only Linux distribution that you can stand, go with KiCAD. If you are a die-hard Linuxer who can't stand what Ubuntu is doing to the ecosystem, go with gEDA.Except... recently the good people at CERN decided to adopt a free PCB software package to make a concerted effort to improve it and bring it up to a professional standard. They looked at gEDA and KiCAD, and they picked KiCAD. A pity, IMO, but then again, I haven't browsed the source code of either and it might be a different story at that level.So, I'm learning KiCAD because it appears to be the future of free PCB software, for better or worse.