Notable FOSS software
Notable FOSS software
There are lots of really good software out there outside of the usual desktop functions so I thought it would be a good idea for a discovery type thread
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter
Great Britain is a republic, with a hereditary president, while the United States is a monarchy with an elective king
Great Britain is a republic, with a hereditary president, while the United States is a monarchy with an elective king
Re: Notable FOSS software
KiCad
FOSS eCAD software. https://kicad.org/
originally something created to support some ones work in microwave, it has ticked over slowly over the years. v4 was a significant milestone as CERN decided to directly fund and directly support it. The reason being the "professional" eCAD suites typically would not adapt to their specific needs and cost an awful amount of money for what they offer.
This was a significant injection and change a lot of the core around.
v5 was again a major release to leverage the core updates
v5.1 exceeded EAGLE's capability and with EAGLE being a walled garden to Autodesk it became the de facto hobby tool and the usage shot up.
v5.99 is the W.I.P. version ready for the v6 sometime in the next few months. curve traces, constrain rules etc.... Right now v5.99 (as compiled this morning) is easily knocking on ALTIUM's door and depending on what features you need it either easily meets them or there are features on the roadmap.
The one really annoying shortcoming is no ODB++ support... this is a "modern eCAD" fileformat designed to contain fabrication, assembly and testing information. It however is proprietary. The alternative is GERBER-v3 which does all that and v5.99 support this (not surprising since the original author works for Ucamco or is in tight association with and one of the core kicad dev's is always in contact with ucamco.
The card in this post ( viewtopic.php?p=5833#p5833 ) was done in KiCad. I wish I could show you want I had fabricated and assembled at the start of the year (it is gorgeous ), but I can't atm
FOSS eCAD software. https://kicad.org/
originally something created to support some ones work in microwave, it has ticked over slowly over the years. v4 was a significant milestone as CERN decided to directly fund and directly support it. The reason being the "professional" eCAD suites typically would not adapt to their specific needs and cost an awful amount of money for what they offer.
This was a significant injection and change a lot of the core around.
v5 was again a major release to leverage the core updates
v5.1 exceeded EAGLE's capability and with EAGLE being a walled garden to Autodesk it became the de facto hobby tool and the usage shot up.
v5.99 is the W.I.P. version ready for the v6 sometime in the next few months. curve traces, constrain rules etc.... Right now v5.99 (as compiled this morning) is easily knocking on ALTIUM's door and depending on what features you need it either easily meets them or there are features on the roadmap.
The one really annoying shortcoming is no ODB++ support... this is a "modern eCAD" fileformat designed to contain fabrication, assembly and testing information. It however is proprietary. The alternative is GERBER-v3 which does all that and v5.99 support this (not surprising since the original author works for Ucamco or is in tight association with and one of the core kicad dev's is always in contact with ucamco.
The card in this post ( viewtopic.php?p=5833#p5833 ) was done in KiCad. I wish I could show you want I had fabricated and assembled at the start of the year (it is gorgeous ), but I can't atm
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter
Great Britain is a republic, with a hereditary president, while the United States is a monarchy with an elective king
Great Britain is a republic, with a hereditary president, while the United States is a monarchy with an elective king
Re: Notable FOSS software
First that come to mind is GCC, probably the most valuable free tool ever made.
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Henry Crunn
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Re: Notable FOSS software
The GNU toolchain in general, which is used to build everything else.
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You can't get the wood.
You can't get the 'shiver me timbers' wood' you know.
You can't get the wood.
You can't get the 'shiver me timbers' wood' you know.
Re: Notable FOSS software
Having gone TRS-80->DOS->OS/2->*nix in the early/mid 90s, gcc was one of my favorite things about Linux... Compilers were ridiculously expensive and as a teenager that didn't have any money with parents that didn't make a lot of money (but saw buying me a computer as investing in my future), I often had to rely on what I could get my hands on - sometimes pirated, sometimes bought at discounts through education channels.
I learned C, specifically, through Turbo C, which I found on a BBS "warez" site at the time, and then ended up buying Borland C++ for something like $80 through a friend that was enrolled in a college that could sell it to students at that price.
When I got to college, everything was proprietary UNIX boxes of different flavors, using proprietary libraries like Motif. That was fine when I was on the school's computers, but I was an off campus student and Linux gave me everything I needed... for free, including dropins like Lesstif