Arch|Manjaro and Kicad 7

Community
4

Thanks @thebig

I am not sure if I have to change a repos or something. But I am seeing Kicad 6 only.

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The textual version just in case.

    ~/Documents/assoc-board    main ?2    sudo pacman -Syu kicad kicad-library kicad-library-3d              1 ✘  17s  
[sudo] password for lheck: 
:: Synchronizing package databases...
 core is up to date
 extra is up to date
 community is up to date
 multilib is up to date
error: failed retrieving file 'core.db' from mirror.ventraip.net.au : The requested URL returned error: 404
error: failed retrieving file 'extra.db' from mirror.ventraip.net.au : The requested URL returned error: 404
error: failed retrieving file 'community.db' from mirror.ventraip.net.au : The requested URL returned error: 404
warning: too many errors from mirror.ventraip.net.au, skipping for the remainder of this transaction
warning: kicad-6.0.11-1 is up to date -- reinstalling
warning: kicad-library-6.0.11-1 is up to date -- reinstalling
warning: kicad-library-3d-6.0.11-1 is up to date -- reinstalling
:: Starting full system upgrade...
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...

Packages (3) kicad-6.0.11-1  kicad-library-6.0.11-1  kicad-library-3d-6.0.11-1

Total Installed Size:  5781,90 MiB
Net Upgrade Size:         0,00 MiB

:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n]
5

It is 7.0.1 here: Arch Linux - kicad 7.0.1-1 (x86_64)

6

Did not see your msg. Thanks, I could find the package with the Flatpak thanks.

7

Yeah, I found this page. I just could not understand how to use this, yet. I am using Manjaro since yesterday.

8

This has some extra steps to launch it from the CLI, which is fine but I could not launch kicad-cli yet.

9

Ah, found an old post of mine that solves that.

10

Summary so far:

  • There is a flatpak of Kicad 7, I could run it from the command line but I could not use kicad-cli yet
  • There is a Kicad 7 on Arch that I could not install on Manjaro yet.

I appreciate it if someone has any directions.

The goal is to install Kicad 7 and use/launch Kicad, eeschema, pcbnew, kicad-cli from the command line.

11

This seems relevant Arch User Repository - Manjaro

12

I figured out that:

  1. it is not possible to use Arch repository in Manjaro.
  2. it is possible to build and use kicad from its main repo somehow/ (this leads to the Kicad 7.99)
  3. it is possible to switch the whole base of the system from the stable to testing, and then Kicad 7 is available there. However, it updates the whole system and it takes time too. But I could use it there that was my goal at that moment.

Cheers!

13

You could also checkout the 7.0 branch and build that manually. Getting all the dependencies and configuring the build correctly might not be that trivial, however, depending on your experience with building C++ software.

1 Like
14

It installed Kicad 6 when I did this a few days ago

15

You can try with this: How to build KiCad on Linux (the easy way) · Wiki · eelik-kicad / kicad · GitLab (I haven’t tested recently and not with v7)

1 Like
16

Kicad is the only program I compile. It started because Debian was way too far behind. They do better with backports now though. Once set up, it isn’t too bad. It is the set up that can be a problem at the start though.

17

Oh, definitely, I just wanted to use Kicad yesterday a couple of times. This could have taken more time… or not, actually, since this was something more complex than I was expecting, haha

18

I use Arch and KiCad 7 packages in Arch.

With archinstall, I think there is less reason to use Manjaro, etc – vanilla Arch is now easy to install and long term will be a lot less pain to maintain than Manjaro or other wrapper distros that install a bunch of stuff that will likely not be maintained.

19

Oh, that’s interesting.

I found Manjaro trying to find a quick way to test the Arch package manager without having to reconfigure the whole world. But it looks like Manjaro also has some differences, especially on the available packages like Kicad 7.

But this is awesome, thanks for sharing it.

20

The nice thing with arch is it’s trivial to download the PKGBUILD file and then build manually:

Put the above in a directory, and then run:

  • makepkg
  • pacman -U <package file>

Or follow the PKGBUILD to manually build.

21

yeah, I am pretty impressed with archinstall – made setting up new machine much easier, but still have the power and great experience of pure Arch. It will set up pretty much everything including your graphical environment (KDE, etc).

22

You are almost changing my mind to try it and use it once and for all. I am using ubuntu my whole life, but having a distro with rolling releases is a dream for me. :slight_smile:

23

Arch is a dream distro for developers. Install it and roll for years. I’ve had almost no problems on multiple machines that have been updating for 5+ years and hardly any issues where something broke due to a recent update. If anything, it is more stable and easier to use than anything else. Pacman is a package manager done right – it’s fast, lean, and just works. I think rolling is the future for software development/distribution – it is just too much effort to backport fixes and support old releases. A more sustainable approach is to test more and create systems that are more decoupled so each part of the system can march forward at its own pace and everything always moves forward.

1 Like