Re: gEDA suite vs my creaky old Protel Client 3.5?

DJ Delorie wrote: 
Stuart Brorson <sdb@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:

: 8 layers, or 6 plus two power planes, although if you want a complex
: outline you use one of the layers for that.

How do you get 8?  Do you have to redefine the layer buttons on
the left?  If so, how do you do that?



In the default pcb-gtk settings, you've got component, solder, gnd,
power, signal1, signal2, unused, unused.  Eight.  You can rename them
or group them, but as far as the internal are concerned, they're just
eight copper layers.

The Xaw version of pcb used to default to grouping some of the layers
together to form logical layers, reducing the number of gerber plots,
but you could always break the groupings to get back to eight
individual layers.  It's always been that way.


Note to the OP: A new, GTK-based version of PCB is slated to be
released any day now,



Too late ;-)

Although I don't know if there's a snapshot of it yet, but it is what
you get if you check it out of CVS.  The Xaw version has been
relegated to a branch.


2. no easy backannotation between PCB and gschem. 


Yeah, we talked about that a bit.  I suspect the hard parts are
agreeing on a file format and redrawing the schematics if needed.
Spitting out the difference between the netlist and the current
connectivity shouldn't be *that* hard for pcb to do.

There was an article about gEDA in Circuit Cellar, March issue. I read it because I was considering using it and wanted to reduce the learning curve (never enough time and no one will pay me to learn something). I likely won't be using it now, but I'd like to share my thoughts (sent to the article authors) and all of you can comment as you see fit.

1. The article was a nice introduction, but not enough detail for me to feel comfortable doing a project yet. Hope they will do a series of articles on using all of the gEDA facilities, which are impressive.

2. What would be nice is a book similar to "Build Your Own Printed Circuit Board" (by Al Williams), which uses Eagle. This is a very good hand-holder, but not a great reference text. Still, it serves the purpose of getting people started with Eagle. I'm using Eagle because a free version came with the book. The problem is that who has the time to write a book!?! Doing a book is really a project in its self. An example of a good e-book (on Knoppix) is at:
http://www.pjls16812.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/knowing-knoppix/index.html

3. May as well go whole hog (so to speak) and then do a livecd with the complete gEDA system on it. This is another bit of work, but I seem to use livecd's more than I ever thought I would, and it would serve as a bridge to Windows users.

Have a good day.

Dave,



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