quote 1 ==== gEDA is a suite of several tools (some of them independent) around EDA tasks. It has quite a long history and is extensively developed. The GUI however is quite cumbersome and outdated. ==== quote 2 ==== KiCad is also a suite of tools, but more tightly integrated. It's much younger that gEDA, but nevertheless seems to cover the whole tool chain. The UI is very nice, ====
Interesting .. I find the Kicad interface rather annoying. It is the same kind of annoyance of typical windoze programs. It even comes with "zip" files! It appears that "outdated" is a code word meaning "suitable for more advanced users who need more flexibility". He does have a point .. There are interface issues with gEDA that really should be taken care of. They are subtle, related to how the tools work together, but fixing them could make for a big improvement. In the windoze world, and unfortunately to an increasing extent in the Linux world too, there is a tendency to think all kinds of ugliness can be hidden under a GUI. Doing so is a HUGE mistake. So he blows his point. or does he? KiCad fills a need that gEDA doesn't. It provides a migration path to free software while maintaining the windoze style. Somebody needs to make a translation tool, making it possible to translate kicad files to geda when they outgrow kicad. Apparently the "whole tool chain" means schematic and layout, and nothing else. _______________________________________________ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user