EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
Electronics => PCB/EDA/CAD => Topic started by: ScribblesOnNapkins on March 01, 2017, 08:13:37 pm
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The gEDA project forked basically over a disagreement about languages. The original code for gEDA was C and some plugins in scheme. I tried to write a short history of what lead to this but I couldn't find a way to do it that was politically safe. I am a part of PCB-RND now and we (pcb-rnd) want to have a good relationship with everyone.
Roland is the new leader of gEDA. Good luck to him. He has made Xorn a python replacement for a lot of gEDA's core the new default which might break some things so please report bugs as you find them. You can turn it off at build time if you want because he left the original stuff in there too.
Vladimir is the leader of Lepton EDA which made their first official release this week. Good luck to them too. They are extending the original scheme and in the process phasing out some of the original C.
The important note here is this: We hope that with this split some long standing disagreements are resolved.
@ PCB-RND we were always concerned about the way gEDA was going. We are trying to ride out the storm by being more compatible. The original mission of gEDA was to build an ecology of tools to do electronics. We still believe in that dream. To that end we are expanding in 2 directions. Our next release will include support for a lot more schematic capture packages including one you definitely won't expect. We are also working on compatibility with more pcb packages.
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I am using gEAD on HPPA-linux.
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Cool. What revision? Do you use it with a PCB layout tool and if so which one? If you use it with a simulator (spice, xyce, etc) which one?
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2017-01-23--23-47-51---2017-01-24--00-24-13 - sci-electronics/geda - v1.9.2 - success
2017-01-25--13-08-26---2017-01-25--14-34-42 - sci-electronics/pcb - v20140316 -success
2017-01-25--16-17-21---2017-01-25--19-56-15 - sci-electronics/gnucap - v0.35.20091207 - success
2017-01-26--17-41-26---2017-01-26--18-03-02 - sci-electronics/gtkwave - v3.3.73 - success
2017-01-26--18-57-09---2017-01-26--19-14-15 - sci-visualization/gnuplot - v5.0.1-r1 - success
2017-01-29--23-41-13---2017-01-30--04-18-44 - sci-electronics/ngspice - v26 - success
Compiled from sources, on HPPA2.
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2017-01-23--23-47-51---2017-01-24--00-24-13 - sci-electronics/geda - v1.9.2 - success
2017-01-25--13-08-26---2017-01-25--14-34-42 - sci-electronics/pcb - v20140316 -success
2017-01-25--16-17-21---2017-01-25--19-56-15 - sci-electronics/gnucap - v0.35.20091207 - success
2017-01-26--17-41-26---2017-01-26--18-03-02 - sci-electronics/gtkwave - v3.3.73 - success
2017-01-26--18-57-09---2017-01-26--19-14-15 - sci-visualization/gnuplot - v5.0.1-r1 - success
2017-01-29--23-41-13---2017-01-30--04-18-44 - sci-electronics/ngspice - v26 - success
Compiled from sources, on HPPA2.
sci-electronics/geda - v1.9.2 I think was the last version of geda before the split. I am still on 1.8.2. I really miss the days when gEDA was distributed in more package. In the beginning there was a set of libraries each with their own package, and the tools (gschem, gattrib, gnetlist, ..) were all separate packages you installed after that. It was nice because honestly a lot of the later changes don't appeal to me but I just want to update gnetlist.
Have you tried pcb-rnd?
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Have you tried pcb-rnd?
Not yet, I need to prepare a proper ebuild and its profile for HPPA before emerging it as overlay.
Linux on HPPA is not like on x86, software is more breakable.
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Is DJ Delorie involved any more?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAgtLkFTEvY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAgtLkFTEvY)
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#1 Thanks for doing that interview it added people in a time when we were loosing them.
DJ Delorie is still involved in that gEDA and PCB (mainline) are still on his servers. As a sort of landlord to the project I think he wanted to avoid being a part of the fight between the two sides of the gEDA project (xorn and lepton eda) and the mainline of pcb. (pcb-rnd is on Igor2's server in Hungary and some 5 or 6 mirrors around the globe)
On the PCB-RND side he has been helpful when it came to answering questions about the code and on our migration of a lot of data from his server http://www.gedasymbols.org (http://www.gedasymbols.org) to our http://repo.hu/projects/edakrill/ (http://repo.hu/projects/edakrill/) He contributed the code used to render the symbols into images for edakrill but in all other capacities he is uninvolved to my knowledge. It is possible he (DJ) is contributing via back channels.
Only DJ can answer the question of why he is no longer contributing in other ways. If *you* (meaning just Dave) emailed him I believe he might explain it privately. There was a time when pcb-rnd looked like it might simply become "the new" pcb (mainline). Meaning Igor2 and the rest of us would take over the original project and follow their last release with our latest. At the time the mainline hadn't made a new release in years so it was on the edge of "bit rot" into oblivion. DJ was involved in the discussion but not actually on ether side as far as I could tell. What I am saying is that in the scheme of things he is a figure who people still respect and he tries to use that honorably.
On a related note Igor2 got into the history of the project and wrote to all the past developers he could find and made this
http://repo.hu/projects/pcb-history/ (http://repo.hu/projects/pcb-history/)
It has as many release of the project as we could find and written histories from as many of the projects past developers as we could get. I believe all of those release will run on a modern linux build if you install the dependencies (motif/lesstif and etc) a few people have run them for fun.
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If someone involved in the project(s) now came forward would you want to do another interview? I mean a lot has changed in 7 years.
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@EEVBlog - Some of the guys wanted to make a point about flexibility and grab your attention too. PCB-RND now supports Autotrax.
https://vk5hse.blogspot.com.au/2017/07/pcb-rnd-support-for-protel-autotrax.html (https://vk5hse.blogspot.com.au/2017/07/pcb-rnd-support-for-protel-autotrax.html)
ErichVK did a lot of the work on this. The last image in his blog post on it is a board of yours he found here.
http://www.alternatezone.com/electronics/freq.htm (http://www.alternatezone.com/electronics/freq.htm)