[sdiy] GorF Update

[Eric Brombaugh]

John Luciani wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 5:15 AM, Paul Maddox
> <paul.maddox.mail-list at synth.net> wrote:
> 
>>  As much as I like Eagle, I find the the 100mm by 80mm board size limit
>> really annoying. And yes there's the "non profit" version which gives 160mm
>> by 100mm and whilst that would be fine for GorF the other projects I'm
>> working on require a board length of around 240mm by 100mm. and I certainly
>> can't afford the 1200UKP for the full version of the software. It's a crying
>> shame there's nothing in between the 160mm and 'anysize' limits, in terms of
>> cost (The standard version only offers 160mm by 100mm board size limit).
> 
> I switched from Eagle to gEDA/PCB a few years ago. I have found gEDA/PCB
> to be a more productive tool. My gEDA/PCB tools and footprint library are
> at luciani.org.

I've got to step in and second this. I've been using gEDA/PCB for about 
a year now and I'm quite happy with it. I've successfully done 3 boards 
with it through BatchPCB and I'm starting on another. Things I like:

* Free - as in beer and as in freedom.

* Actively maintained - a busy community of contributors who also use 
it, know where the warts are and are working to correct them. In fact, 
the PC layout tool had a a 'Google Summer of Code' grant last year and 
another grant for one of the main developers this year.

* Active user community - the mail list is quite responsive. Ask a 
question, get a useful answer usually within a few hours.

* Good on-line documentation - websites, wikis, etc. All full of good stuff.

* Works on Linux and on Mac OS X (via fink). May work on WinXX under 
Cygwin but I haven't tried it. I pop designs transparently between a 
Linux desktop and a Mac laptop.

* Design files are text - human readable & easy to edit for quick global 
updates when mousing around graphically would be too tedious. Symbols & 
footprints can be created with home-made tools (Perl, Python, C, etc).

A few things that annoy me:

* Keyboard shortcuts are a bit orthogonal to general standards.

* Libraries are kinda spotty - Outside of JCL's excellent collection of 
footprints which I use often there are some gaping holes and I usually 
end up having to make my own.

Definitely recommended.

Eric