PCB design software linux

[cleanworkbench]

What do people recommend for Linux mint as a good free PCB design software just for hobby stuff, single and double plane should do it design . Any suggestions please.

[daqq]

KiCAD. To the best of my knowledge it's the only free and open source design software running natively under linux that's worth considering.

edit: There's also Eagle, but, Autodesk essentially destroyed it for me, so no.

[cleanworkbench]

Thank you , i will give that a look .

[Lukas]

I'm glad you ask. It's just about a week until the first stable release of Horizon EDA, a PCB design software I've been developing for the past 3 years:

https://horizon-eda.org/
https://horizon-eda.readthedocs.io/en/latest/feature-overview.html

[james_s]

I use KiCAD on both Linux and Windows, it's quite good.

No reason to look at anything else IMO, Eagle is dead and none of the hobbyist packages I've seen come close to the capabilities.

[Warhawk]

I'm glad you ask. It's just about a week until the first stable release of Horizon EDA, a PCB design software I've been developing for the past 3 years:

https://horizon-eda.org/
https://horizon-eda.readthedocs.io/en/latest/feature-overview.html

Great progress! I ma looking forward to try it.

[PKTKS]

KiCAD. To the best of my knowledge it's the only free and open source design software running natively under linux that's worth considering.

edit: There's also Eagle, but, Autodesk essentially destroyed it for me, so no.

2x 100% agreed.

KiCAD does whatever you need.

BTW the goal of EAGLE incorporated pretty much is to
embrace and destroy - simple rule of thumb for those corps.

They act together with a non disclosed agenda...
which eventually boils down to that "LICENSE" fees
and  controlled  form factor user setup.

I've ditched them all by late 90's
things just started to work as they should WITHOUT
their hidden daemons and licenses running "ON MY PAID HARDWARE"

Paul

[OwO]

Consider gEDA PCB as well. Personally I can't stand the visual clutter of KiCAD (and most PCB software out there). There is no easy way to quickly view only the top layer (with silk, pads, traces and everything) and quickly switch to viewing any other layer. You have to disable and enable 6 different layers, and things like borders around components can't even be disabled. How do you even get work done when your overview of the board looks like this (not even a complex board):


https://kicad-pcb.org/img/screenshots/pcbnew.png

For comparison this is what a board looks like in gEDA with the top layer visible:

Notice how the bottom side components are still faintly visible (can be disabled as well), which can help you align things but does not litter your screen and make it impossible to see the big picture (like in KiCAD).

This is with top layer overlaid on in1, for example to see at a glance what traces are going over a solid ground plane:


Pressing tab quickly switches to bottom view of the board:


When designing RF boards it's much easier to visualize the 3d structure with gEDA. In KiCAD there is a 3d view, but it's a separate view and you can't see it in realtime as you lay down traces.

[nctnico]

I'm glad you ask. It's just about a week until the first stable release of Horizon EDA, a PCB design software I've been developing for the past 3 years:

https://horizon-eda.org/
https://horizon-eda.readthedocs.io/en/latest/feature-overview.html

Didn't try your software but the part management looks to be well implemented!

[lutkeveld]

Consider gEDA PCB as well. Personally I can't stand the visual clutter of KiCAD (and most PCB software out there). There is no easy way to quickly view only the top layer (with silk, pads, traces and everything) and quickly switch to viewing any other layer. You have to disable and enable 6 different layers, and things like borders around components can't even be disabled. How do you even get work done when your overview of the board looks like this (not even a complex board):

<image>

..

When designing RF boards it's much easier to visualize the 3d structure with gEDA. In KiCAD there is a 3d view, but it's a separate view and you can't see it in realtime as you lay down traces.

Press H to highlight the currently selected layer. Remaining layers will be gray and (almost) transparant.

Also; if you keep the 3D viewer open you can quickly alt-tab to view results. Or keep it open in a seperate window, but it will only update when you click on it.

[Pseudobyte]

There is no easy way to quickly view only the top layer (with silk, pads, traces and everything) and quickly switch to viewing any other layer.

Well that just isn't true.

[Warhawk]

There is no easy way to quickly view only the top layer (with silk, pads, traces and everything) and quickly switch to viewing any other layer.

Well that just isn't true.

How do you do it? I struggle with KiCads layer display too. (I know the highlight mode).

[thinkfat]

There is no easy way to quickly view only the top layer (with silk, pads, traces and everything) and quickly switch to viewing any other layer.

Well that just isn't true.

How do you do it? I struggle with KiCads layer display too. (I know the highlight mode).

With "Layers Manager" active, right-click inside the "Layers" tab, select "Show All Front Layers" or "Show All Back Layers" in the menu that appears. Unfortunately, this also re-enables all layers you might have disabled to reduce clutter. For example, I never enable the "Fab" layers, but when using "Show All <...> Layers", they come back on again. One possible work-around is to disable the Fab layers in the layer stack completely. That's what I usually do as I don't need them.

[donotdespisethesnake]

Personally I can't stand the visual clutter of KiCAD (and most PCB software out there). There is no easy way to quickly view only the top layer (with silk, pads, traces and everything) and quickly switch to viewing any other layer.

There is in recent versions. You can also set the alpha on layers.

You're using an old version of KiCad, the UI has been improving a lot recently. That's a lot to do with some new developers on the team, who are specifically interested in improving the UI which has never been the focus of the core developers. There is still a LOT of stuff that needs improving, but I see very positive progress.

Also if you use KiCad, https://forum.kicad.info/ is a fantastic resource.

Anyway, in addition to KiCad and gEDA, there is also Horizon and LibrePCB, so you can choose whichever suits you.