I agree that as a h/w person, you shouldn't be expected to have to tweak or fix s/w.
That being said, I kind of think most people who complain about having to do this are ... somewhat making the problem for themselves.
This is purely based on my own experience of installing and working with KiCAD (or any open source software in general).
Just as the user is free to choose their update frequency, they are free to choose their install method.
Another way to say it "You're free to choose the length of rope with which to hang yourself"
If you are a Linux or s/w compilation expert and are used to compiling from source then by all means do it. heck, you can even chase down the dependencies and compile and install them.
You can tweak the compile flags to your hears content and optimise for your system. If you want.
If your not such and expert then why would you choose this option. Too many users have reported successful builds for the process to be wrong. If something did go wrong, its usually something you did.
If you get stuck, you can ask for help and you wont get criticised for your choice of installation method. Equally you shouldn't criticise a proven installation method that you do not have the technical ability to perform.
Instead, just download the pre-compiled binaries for you system.
Linux users have it easy because they can just search for it in their package manager. This usually gets you an older version of what ever the software version that your distribution checked was.
If you want the latest, bleeding edge, point your installation manager to the right location and it will bitch and moan that you're installing from a possibly unsafe source but it will install it for you.
windows users have a helper program/script; but may be a little more work. If you can't do it then your left with the old stable version and you have to wait for the next stable version ~so end of July 2015.
Just over a month from now. Too many newbies have reported successful installs this way for the process to be broken.
Btw the download link to the your final selection is one or two hyperlinks away (depending on how lazy you are) from the main KiCad page. Thats the same with Altium and eagle.
Only eagle actually says "Download".
KiCAD says "Installing KiCAD", Altium says "Free Trial" then makes you fill in some personal details, or you could go products > altium designer buts that equally obvious isnt it.
There you go, those of you who wanted a stable release cycle. At the end of July, you can install the new stable version. You will have caught up to what the daily build guys have been running. But that was your choice.
You chose to wait until that time, so you shouldn't complain about it being buggy if you're on an old version. That's true of any software regardless of it being open or not.
Its kind of like complaining about a bug in Altium 10 that was fixed in the next version, but you still complain even though we're at v15.
You chose not to purchase the new version or to let your subscription pass. That's the nature of Altiums business model.
Of course, once you have your working s/w you still have to waste time getting over its learning curve.
So those of you who are just h/w and only want to get on with work may not like it because you'll probably be complaining that its not like Altium/Eagle/OrCad or whatever you're used to.
You have to at least spend some time getting to grips with the way the tool works. That includes the fundamentals like copy/paste.
On windows its Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V,
and apple is CMD+C, CMD+V
because the V makes sense (in Latin... because that's a standard language
)
In KiCAD schematic its Ctrl+C , mouse click the paste button on the toolbar. You can also drag select and right click -> copy. You don't care that Ctrl+C is actually called 'save block' because it does the same thing as far as your concerned.
Except, the two are subtly different and you can use them differently and become more efficient. (Granted, if efficiency was a concern you wouldn't be using KiCAD - but that will get better).
In PCB its Ctrl+D. Its the disjointed nature of KiCAD. [That being said, Altium has legacy stuff like this eg p,t in sch and pcb does text and trace]
The differences are not rocket science. They're just different. If you can learn Altium shortcuts, then you can learn any programs shortcuts.
My opinion is that these trivial things shouldn't be the make or break factor in choosing any software.
Especially if the users of such software are meant to be technically capable people (more so than average joe blogs)
Fixing them will go a long way to making the software appealing, but the software is more than usable now.