Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2014 20:15:11 -0500
From: James Harig <jharig23 AT gmail DOT com>
To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: [geda-user] How unstable is gEDA/gaf 1.9.0?
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On Wed, 19 Feb 2014 23:09:53 +0100
Stefan Salewski <mail AT ssalewski DOT de> wrote:

> On Wed, 2014-02-19 at 14:50 -0600, John Griessen wrote:
> > On 02/19/2014 11:52 AM, JAMES HARIG wrote:
> > > How unstable is the gEDA/gaf 1.9.0?  Are people using it?  The
> > > geda/gaf documentation references utilities (for example 'gaf'),
> > > which are not in the 1.8 release.  Is there a real benefit to
> > > using the newer version?
> > 
> > Sure.  It has the most bugs fixed.  I always update before starting
> > a new project. There's little risk of something broken badly in the
> > latest code.
> 

> Please note, it makes not much sense to call 1.9 an unstable
> development version and at the same time advertise its use to
> ordinary people.
> 
> I am not absolutely sure, but I really think that one of the official
> gEDA developers asked in the past to not include the odd numbered
> releases into distributions.
> 
> If this policy has changed, let us know, we may then include 1.9 in
> official Gentoo distribution.
> 
> 
> JAMES HARIG asked about the term gaf:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEDA
> "
> Within the gEDA Suite, gEDA/gaf ("gaf" stands for "gschem and
> friends") is the smaller subset of tools grouped together under the
> gEDA name and maintained directly by the gEDA project's founders.
> "
> 

Thanks for the quick response!  The gaf that I was referring to is
referenced on the geda wiki page:

http://wiki.geda-project.org/geda:gaf

There are many utilities included as part of gEDA/gaf. See their manual
pages and READMEs in the source distribution for more information on
them:

    gaf(1) is a multipurpose command line utility implementing setting
    up the above programs, exporting schematics and symbols into
    various formats, and shell for command line processing of their
    data. See also this page on the utility.

I built version 1.8 and 1.9 from source. 1.8 doesn't include the 'gaf' 
utility, while 1.9 does.  I'm just wondering if there are enough
benefits for an ordinary user like myself to use 1.9.