8.0 is useless - Has no symbols

Software
1

Hello there!

We have used KiCad 5… some years ago, but gave up on it as it was just a constant stream of headache to deal with it… so we switched to EasyEDA and were pretty happy ever since…

However just not to loose track on what’s going on in this field of software, today I went ahead and installed latest KiCad on to my Linux Mint machine by following this guide: Install on Linux | KiCad EDA

I have followed all recommendations to start with provided defaults. Now when I clicked for the first time to add new symbol it trowed ~ 30 errors, saying that symbols are not found… Symbol list window was completely empty. Somewhere in between it asked again something about importing default symbol templates, I have agreed… now when I click add new symbol, the list has something in it, although nothing works.

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If this was a company driven project, at lease a few people would have got fired. How can you release a software that is full of features, took thousands upon thousands of hours to develop, but is 100% useless to someone who decided to try it out. Such a disgrace.

2

I would help you if you had asked for some kind of help.

It is easy to download the libraries. But I do not feel like helping anyone who is only ranting.

5 Likes
3

There is no reason to be so aggressive.
What you are trying to do is a fundamental part of the toolsuite and thus what is more likely

  1. there is this obvious issue with kicad that has never been spotted nor address to date
  2. something was skipped as part of YOUR install?

almost always it is #2.
Now it is typical when a user faces an issue, information of their setup is provided as there is no real hope of actually coming to an amicable solution.

From the screenshots I am guess it is MINT due to the colour theme so as long as the steps to install were followed and the main application and library were install, things should work.
Clearly they are not but what is odd is it isn’t like the libary structure isn’t found (since you are showing the categories) but the content of each category is not there.

This feels like either the actual symbol files are in a non-standard place or when you 1st launched kicad8 you did not pick the prefered default option, which would then seed your ~/.local/share/kicad/ with the default options.

oh and FYI… whether this was a company drive project doesn’t make it immune to issue (and clearly self-entitled users…)
MICROSOFT lost the sourcecode to MSword equation editor and had to hack the binary to fix a vuln. Thats quite incompetent

MICROSOFT also lost the file format description of their own fileformat and had to support a windows-3.11 virtual machine to ensure their own files were read.

We cannot control what others do BUT we can control how we behave and interact with others so how about some self reflection.

4

It’s not ranting. It’s called user feedback and this is the major stimula that helps organizations to grow at rapid rates if properly employed.

I am Python developer with 20+ years of experience under my belt. I respect every open source project and everyone who contributes, however this kind of scenario is beyond any comprehension or respect to others who contributed to this project over many years. This was introduced by some contributor and never tested before releasing the newest version as “stable” to the public.

Feeling irritated by my attitude only shows how femane everyone has became. I am here to express my fedback in a way that every new user will feel when faced with this… also as I am strong advocate of open source software my entire career, issues like these p**** me off beyond imagination and I have a right to feel that way as well as right to express it, so that you guys realize that not everything is just rainbows and sunshine… I would love to donate and I want others to do the same even in great ammounts, but when I am welcomed zero quality controll and “client support” like this… - how can you expect any donations at all?

5

I’m really very surprised.
In 2017 I moved from Protel 3 (we used since 1997) to KiCad V4 and I agree there still were some problems with it (mainly via-stitching). But V5 was much better. The only important for me problem was that it was not possible to hide selected nets (GND, VCC) connection lines.
What so complicated you were doing that you got headache?

Few days ago someone here was surprised that he reported a bug and next day he could download KiCad with this bug fixed.

Since I’m using KiCad I had such experience many times.
Once even happened that bug was fixed when we (users) were discussing at forum if it is a bug. When then I reported that bug I got in few minutes the answer that bug is already fixed and if I download next day text version it will be free of that bug.

Do you suggest that we should expect something more from KiCad user feedback?

6

If this was a company driven project, at lease a few people would have got fired.

To answer in the same tone: as a boss I would fire the person who installed kicad, but was not able to accomplish this task and instead blames others. If the majority of users succesfully could install this software suite, maybe the problem is in front of the monitor.

I don’t like it, if someone as a first reaction blames other people instead of politely asking for help. Everyone makes mistakes, it’s the reaction after that mistakes which is important.

additional note: linux mint is not listed as official supported platform. You could see directly at the official kicad website: System Requirements | KiCad EDA
regarding the missing symbols I can’t help, there are not enough informations.

7 Likes
7

I use Mint; since Kicad 4 days, never had a problem.

Probably a user error.

Did you install the libraries, as recommended in the installation?

This is my current version, but previous versions worked perfectly when used, whatever the Kicad version was, at the time. :slightly_smiling_face:

Application: KiCad x86_64 on x86_64

Version: 8.0.1-unknown-202403172319~81f55dfc9c~ubuntu22.04.1, release build

Libraries:
	wxWidgets 3.2.1
	FreeType 2.11.1
	HarfBuzz 2.7.4
	FontConfig 2.13.1
	libcurl/7.81.0 OpenSSL/3.0.2 zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.9 zstd/1.4.8 libidn2/2.3.2 libpsl/0.21.0 (+libidn2/2.3.2) libssh/0.9.6/openssl/zlib nghttp2/1.43.0 librtmp/2.3 OpenLDAP/2.5.17

Platform: Linux Mint 21.3, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK, X11, cinnamon, x11

Build Info:
	Date: Mar 17 2024 23:19:05
	wxWidgets: 3.2.1 (wchar_t,wx containers) GTK+ 3.24
	Boost: 1.74.0
	OCC: 7.6.3
	Curl: 7.81.0
	ngspice: 42
	Compiler: GCC 11.4.0 with C++ ABI 1016

Build settings:

Maybe @paulvdh will comment. He is a regular on this forum and also a Mint user.

1 Like
8

This forum is not Kicad client support.

We are only users like you helping other users.

Some developpers come around from time to time, but not in quality of official Kicad members, unless explicity told.

9

Clearly this sw is too complex for your limited capabilities. Please stick to something more suitable for your technical skill, like red an blue crayons.
Plonk.

4 Likes
10

You are using Linux, welcome to the world of it.

The project officially maintains only Windows and macOS distributions though appimage may be coming soon as a official distribution. There is a Ubuntu ppa as well by the project but that’s independent from the ubuntu maintained kicad package.

11

The OP has not even explained his OS. We know that many Linux distros are not set up properly. KiCad supports only a few distros with cooperative maintainers

12

Ah I just noticed he said Linux mint in between the ranting.

We do disclaim on the Linux install page that we do not officially support mint and it may have issues.

It just sounds like the sub packages in the ppa were not installed (they should be part of the recommends on kicad).

I.em you can apt install kicad-libraries-all

13

Just to clarify this: KiCad is packaged on a lot of distros where we have good relationships with the maintainers. What is meant by “supported” in the KiCad sense is not just that there is a cooperative maintainer, it also requires that one of the core development team actively uses that distro and can debug distro-specific problems deep within the KiCad code (which we don’t necessarily expect package maintainers to do, although some do it).

15

I’m all for giving the OP flack for his attitude but there is a real issue here too. On their screenshot libraries are obviously installed and are obviously in the library tables. But there are no arrows/chevrons on the left of the library list that is supposed to make it look like a tree so obviously OP never guessed that double clicking the library is opening it like a folder and showing the symbols within.
This is what it is supposed to look like

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While on their screenshot there are no arrows.

image

Could this be an issue with Mint? Likely, yes, especially if they have a non-standard desktop theme.

Is it fair to question their capabilities when obviously the software is not behaving as designed? No.

4 Likes
16

No, this happens when there’s no symbols in libraries.

It looks like the OP somehow didn’t install/upgraded kicad-libraries kicad-footprints kicad-packages3d kicad-symbols kicad-templates packages correctly.

17

Its not even that…
The arrogance of the OP got me to install mint in a VM to prove a point and follow the THREE simple command from Install on Linux | KiCad EDA for mint

  1. sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kicad/kicad-8.0-releases
  2. sudo apt update
  3. sudo apt install kicad

and considering this isn’t (directly) controlled by Kicad its good it is here to help others…

so what does apt install kicad show:

2024-03-24_15-03-1711295892
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As you can see kicad-symbols, kicad-libaries are queued to install

2024-03-24_16-03-1711296175
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as you can see

  1. Mint
  2. Kicad installed
  3. DEFAULT mint and the theme isn’t messing with wxwidgets to “hide” the expansion

so either the OP has a non-standard GTK theme that does cause those arrows to hide or the OP arrogantly decided to interupt the kicad metapackage install.

Either way… I have wasted more time that I should on such an arrogant self-entitled user

2 Likes
18

This thread started ugly and isn’t getting any better.

19

I did not read past the 8.0 is useless sentence of the first post, then saw there were a bunch of responses already and went on to another thread.

I have no interest in helping people who start (On their first post none the less) with such a statement. Even If I got paid for the support, it would probably cause so much friction that I’d soon go looking for another job.

So @Simanas_Venckauskas if you want us to invest time and effort into helping you, work on your attitude towards others first.

5 Likes