Re: [PATCH] gnu: add kicad

[Danny Milosavljevic <dannym@scratchpost.org>]

Hi Leo,

On Mon, 23 May 2016 00:13:19 -0400
Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> wrote:

> Danny, are you still interested in working on it? 

Yeah. 

> I noticed on the KiCad download page [0] some instructions to set the
> version string, and other useful build-time configurations. Do you think
> it would be appropriate to apply them?

Yes.

> -DKICAD_SCRIPTING=ON -DKICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON -DKICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
> ------
> 
[...skipped...]
> > +     ; TODO -DKICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
> > +     ; TODO -DKICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
> > +     ; TODO -DKICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON  
> 
> What features are missing without them? 

These are recommended for scripting in Kicad.

>What is OpenSSL / TLS support used for?

Good question - I'll try to find out.

> > +   ; TODO optional doxygen for source docs  
> 
> Do we just need to add doxygen to native-inputs?

Yeah.

> > +   (inputs  
> [...]
> > +       ("libressl" ,libressl)  
> 
> Unusual choice but I don't object to it. This would be the first package
> to refer to libressl in our tree.

We can also use openssl, I don't have a strong preference, really. Both projects seem to merge each other's security patches so we can also use openssl.

> > +   (description "Electronics Design Automation Suite")  
> 
> This should be more descriptive in the final patch.

Yeah, what about "KiCad is an Electronics Design Automation Suite. It allows you to edit schematics, edit printed circuit boards, generate Gerbers and calculate track widths." ?

> > +; TODO extra options for Python (which) and for version.  
> 
> Ah, I see you noticed the text on the download page :)

:)

> > +; TODO kicad-doc, kicad-library, kicad-footprints  
> 
> Do we need to add the library and footprints at the same time as KiCad
> itself, or can they come later?

You can create your own footprints and schematic library in KiCad, so they are not vital. However, it would be a liiittle bit annoying to use.

The footprints contain different physical sizes and layouts of electronic components.

The library contains model numbers (and sometimes vendors) for a given function. You can ask something like "What AC/DC converters are there and what can they do?"; 

also: What are the functions of the pins on this one" etc.