Sir, I started with KiCAD before migrating to gEDA. KiCAD has a good interface, but is considerably lacking in functionality compared to gEDA. The most striking is the lack of a good autorouter in KiCAD's pcbnew, whereas gEDA's pcb has a very good one (still only learning that, though).
gEDA on the other hand is very competent, but the interface is not upto the standards. gEDA's workflow is essentially the same as any professional EDA package. But it often requires the use of command line - most famously, the netlister. I am not too shy to to use the command line, but many professional students/engineers are very unprofessional when it comes to facing up to the command line. There are also places where a GUI is most preferable - like setting up a SPICE simulation. The use of a command line here is purely medieval. gEDA needs a lot of improvement in this area (like a good SPICE control GUI that is well integrated with gtkWave). Very often, gEDA feels like a disorganized collection of tools. Many professional suites like orcad hide this separation by providing menu items that call other associated application (like schematic capture app menu to setup and start a SPICE simulation or component footprint selection for PCB). KiCAD goes further in this area by proving a project manager app which allows easy workflow control without interlinking specialist applications. This is a seriously big drawback for gEDA. Most professionals and students value enhanced productivity and a gentle learning curve more than freedom or cost. I have the following conclusions about open source EDA: 1. I wouldn't fancy gEDA's chances as an appealing tool as long as the designers don't get over the 'geeks use command line' syndrome. Most students and engineers wouldn't consider themselves as geeks. 2. GUI enhancements to gEDA would be extremely helpful to the project. gschem and pcb interfaces are already great. What is needed is a project manager on the lines of KiCAD that can hide all command line operations. Also needed is a good interface for SPICE (though there are 2 already). This alone may make it a very appealing to students and professionals. Quite ironically, this should have been very easy compared to the rest of the suite. 3. There are free apps that simply have no commercial counterparts. Students may find them interesting. First is XCircuit for schematic capture. Though it is not as easy as gschem, it results in publication quality schematics (Think of it as LaTeX for schematics). Its drawings are inherently hierarchal and is natively stored as postscript. Its output can be netlisted for SPICE and PCB). The second is Electric VLSI. It is a VLSI chip design tool that is par excellence. I loved its design paradigm (it is different from commercial tools). More interestingly, you can mix CAD and HDL design entry. 4. There is one another way to promote freedom and cooperation among electronics academia. Though FOSS elephantiasis may disagree, I believe that there is future for open source hardware (rather, open source designs). Licences like TAPR and OSHW can be used by students to showcase their talent - just as the do with free software. 5. The best way to promote free EDA tools is to use them as tools to promote professional design practices. Eventually they will improve as their products improve (like GCC, GDB, mercurial, git etc). Regards, Gokul Das -- "Freedom is the only law". "Freedom Unplugged" http://www.ilug-tvm.org You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ilug-tvm" group. To control your subscription visit http://groups.google.co.in/group/ilug-tvm/subscribe To post to this group, send email to ilug-tvm@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to ilug-tvm-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For details visit the google group page: http://groups.google.com/group/ilug-tvm?hl=en
