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Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 16:04:58 +0100
Message-ID: <CADefDOFZpsbx909CVRp91AQwKq5+FjvhCacdKtGj5uh-QwyWPA@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: [geda-user] gEDA as alternative for KiCad (for me)?
From: Michai Ramakers <m DOT ramakers AT gmail DOT com>
To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Reply-To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com

Hello,

[ I post this in 'geda-user' instead of 'geda-help' because answers
might not be short or simple, and might not benefit new users ]

I've been using KiCad for a number of years now, and am considering
moving to a new EDA suite - gEDA looks like a good candidate. In fact
when choosing an EDA suite back then, KiCad and gEDA were the only
realistic options as far as I could see.

Reasons for looking for a KiCad-alternative are subjective, and
basically boil down to KiCad not being mature enough to use in a
production-environment. (This is my opinion, not a request for
flaming.)

Before wading through docs and giving it a serious try, I'd like to
ask here whether gEDA could provide what I'm looking for in a EDA
suite; 'yes', 'no' or more elaborate replies are more than welcome.


- runs Linux/*BSD (I use NetBSD mostly)

- is stable and mature - no drastic sudden changes in workflow or
file-format or similar

- uses plaintext file-format for interchange between suite-components

- comes with complete and detailed documentation - that includes
file-format details, so I can script against that, and these scripts
will continue to work over releases

- has a coherent project-website (or rather, one-stop source of
information, not scattered throughout the web)


I think that for most of these, it is easy to say whether gEDA
qualifies or not, but comments and mentions of corner-cases are
welcome.

Furthermore, it would be nice to have a proper auto-router. I was
impressed by the 'freerouting.net' autorouter, and read various mails
about gEDA interfacing to the input-/output-formats that
freerouting.net supports, with no definitive answer. I suppose I'd
have to test the gEDA internal autorouter to know how it compares to
the freerouting.net one (or not?).

Thank you in advance,
with kind regards,

Michai