Cannot find default libraries version 5.9

Software
1

I know Kicad is not supported on Rasberry OS, but I have comiled version 5.99, and I have a problem, which I hope someone can help me solve.

I first install all libraries needed for the compilation, then I compile using the following command:
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
-DKICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_mENU=ON
-DwxWidgets_CONFIG_OPTIONS="–toolkit=gtk3"
-DKICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON_PHOENIX=ON
-DKICAD_SCRIPTING_PYTHON3=ON
-SwxWidgets_CONFIGURE_EXECUTABLE=’/usr/bin/wx-config’
…/…
and then
make -j8 (takes a ong time on my Rpi 4 with 8 GB memory)
and then sudo make install

I can now KiCad, but when I open eeschema, it is asking for the default library, and I don’t know how to find it. The same happens with Pcbnew.

I have found temporary solution. If I install and condigurer KiCad using sudo asp -y install kicad, which gives me version 5.1.4, then the default libraries are found when I run make install, but if I remove this version after version 5.9 is installed. I loose all desktop icons, and have to run make install once more. The icons will then be available but will not be on the correct location.

Is there some way to solve this problem?

Best regards

Ulf

2

What is your motivation for installing KiCad on a piece of fruit?

You can bu a 3rd to 5th generation i3 for less then USD200 second hand. Those small form factor boxes from HP seem nice. And they are probably a lot faster, and have much more storage, and you can even put in an extra HDD or SSD (Some of the older do not have an SSD, but those cost about USD30 these day’s)

So ask your self. How much of my time do I want to spend to save those USD200?

On the other hand.
Support for ARM has been getting better on many linux distributions. I use linux Mint myself, which is a very user friendly OS, especially for beginners. With it you can just follow the instructions on the KiCad website to add a repository and then install KiCad, and it fixes all the links and the configuration.

And apparently Mint also runs on your fruit:
https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=linux+mint+raspberry

I don’t like the raspies much, because they do too much wich is against the FOSS philosophy, such as the use of the Broadcomm chips with binary blobs and they are among the last few in this world which still use 32bit PC software (should have died 10+ years ago) and they also do weird things with drivers for a camera to lock the hardware down and handcuff you to their eco system. I do have a few BeagleBoneBlack’s and Cubie boards myself. If I was to buy an upgrade, it would probably be a board from Olimex or Hardkernel.

3

I get your message loud and clear:)
My motivation for using my Rpi 4 is the following:

Cheap lap-tops are cheap lap-tops. I will not get a decent piece of hardware for 200 $ in Norway and I cannot connect two screens.

I have a big box running Windows 10 enterprice with a sillion differen applications installed, and I wanted a clean system for KiCad and some othe software for arduino and C. The Pi gives me what I need, and the speed is not a big issue

I don’t mind spending time - I am retired, and am slowly digging into linux - though I have been using Linux and Unix of several different distros earlier. Keep forgetting things when you get old.

By the way - I am running 64 bit version of Raspberry OS on my Pi, but I admit, they were very late implementing it.

If you have a link to “the instructions on the KiCad website to add a repository” I would apreciate it, at least I need to know what reposityry I should add so KiCad can find the default library.

Ulf

4

Then, download and install the libraries from github in any folder you want:

Or download the libraries to another computer and copy them to the RPi.

Then, change the paths of the environment variables to point to your selected folders.

5

It’s in the direct “download” section. Choose your closest linux distro there: https://kicad.org/download/
I used the Mint variant: https://kicad.org/download/linux-mint/

Near the bottom of the page you find:

sudo add-apt-repository --yes ppa:kicad/kicad-dev-nightly
sudo apt update
sudo apt install kicad-nightly

PPA’s are a “Ubuntu” thing, the do not work on all Debian based distro’s. If it’s straight Debian, you probably have to use a backport. If you can install the binaries this way, then it should also install the libraries and configuration for preferences etc. This is the path of least resistance.

I guess you meant “apt” here?

I’m not sure what KiCad V5.99 does if you install it from source. One of the possibilities is that the Symbol and Footprint libraries do not get installed at all. KiCad V5.1.8 and V5.99 can both be installed at the same time. I installed via the above repository, and “-nightly” is added to all sub programs, so this works:

paul@medion:~$ eeschema-nightly

In the same manner I’ve also got the libraries installed twice:

paul@medion:/usr/share$ ls -hld kicad*
drwxr-xr-x 8 root root 4,0K Oct 21 14:21 kicad
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 4,0K Dec  4 16:24 kicad-nightly

Euhm, except that the libraries themselves are links to other locations:

paul@medion:/usr/share/kicad-nightly$ ls -hl
total 20K
drwxr-xr-x 17 root root 4,0K Nov 17 11:03 demos
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  193 Dec  4 11:20 kicad-nightly.env
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   43 Jul  7 11:47 library -> ../../lib/kicad-nightly/share/kicad/library
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   43 Jul  7 11:47 modules -> ../../lib/kicad-nightly/share/kicad/modules
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4,0K Dec  4 16:24 plugins
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4,0K Nov 17 11:03 scripting
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4,0K Dec  4 16:24 template

On (most?) linux distro’s you can also just install the libraries as separate packages. If you do this, you may have to fix the paths to the libraries manually.
First use “apt search” to see what kicad packages are available, and then use “sudo apt install” to install the packages you want.

paul@medion:/usr/share/kicad-nightly$ apt search kicad
i   kicad                                         - Electronic schematic and PCB design software            
p   kicad-common                                  - Old common files used by kicad - Transitional Package   
p   kicad-dbg                                     - Debug symbols for kicad                                 
i   kicad-demos                                   - Common files used by kicad                              
p   kicad-doc-ca                                  - Kicad help files (Catalan)                              
p   kicad-doc-de                                  - Kicad help files (German)                               
i   kicad-doc-en                                  - Kicad help files (English)                              
p   kicad-doc-es                                  - Kicad help files (Spanish)                              
p   kicad-doc-fr                                  - Kicad help files (French)                               
p   kicad-doc-id                                  - Kicad help files (Indonesian)                           
p   kicad-doc-it                                  - Kicad help files (Italian)                              
p   kicad-doc-ja                                  - Kicad help files (Japanese)                             
p   kicad-doc-pl                                  - Kicad help files (Polish)                               
p   kicad-doc-ru                                  - Kicad help files (Russian)                              
p   kicad-doc-zh                                  - Kicad help files (Chinese)                              
i A kicad-footprints                              - Kicad footprints (modules)                              
i A kicad-libraries                               - meta-package for dep to all KiCad libraries (symbols, fo
p   kicad-locale-bg                               - Bulgarian locale for KiCad                              
p   kicad-locale-ca                               - Catalan locale for KiCad                                
p   kicad-locale-cs                               - Czech locale for KiCad                                  
p   kicad-locale-de                               - German locale for KiCad                                 
p   kicad-locale-el                               - Greek locale for KiCad                                  
p   kicad-locale-es                               - Spanish locale for KiCad                                
p   kicad-locale-fi                               - Finnish locale for KiCad                                
p   kicad-locale-fr                               - French locale for KiCad                                 
p   kicad-locale-hu                               - Hungarian locale for KiCad                              
p   kicad-locale-it                               - Italian locale for KiCad                                
p   kicad-locale-ja                               - Japanese locale for KiCad                               
p   kicad-locale-ko                               - Korean locale for KiCad                                 
p   kicad-locale-lt                               - Lithuanian locale for KiCad                             
p   kicad-locale-nl                               - Netherlands locale for KiCad                            
p   kicad-locale-pl                               - Polish locale for KiCad                                 
p   kicad-locale-pt                               - Portuguese locale for KiCad                             
p   kicad-locale-ru                               - Russian locale for KiCad                                
p   kicad-locale-sk                               - Slovak locale for KiCad                                 
p   kicad-locale-sl                               - Slovenina locale for KiCad                              
p   kicad-locale-sv                               - Swedish locale for KiCad                                
p   kicad-locale-zh                               - Chinese locale for KiCad                                
i   kicad-nightly                                 - Electronic schematic and PCB design software            
p   kicad-nightly-dbg                             - Debug symbols for kicad                                 
i A kicad-nightly-demos                           - Common files used by kicad                              
i   kicad-nightly-footprints                      - Kicad footprints (modules)                              
i   kicad-nightly-libraries                       - meta-package for dep to all KiCad libraries (symbols, fo
i   kicad-nightly-packages3d                      - Kicad packages3d (3d models for footprints)             
i   kicad-nightly-symbols                         - Kicad symbols (schematic)                               
i   kicad-nightly-templates                       - Kicad templates                                         
i A kicad-packages3d                              - Kicad packages3d (3d models for footprints)             
i A kicad-symbols                                 - Kicad symbols (schematic)                               
i A kicad-templates                               - Kicad templates                                         
p   libglm-kicad-dev                              - C++ library for OpenGL GLSL type-based mathematics      
p   libglm-kicad-doc                              - documentation for the OpenGL Mathematics (GLM) library
6

That was a lot of information - I am so grateful you are spendig time helping me!

sudo add-apt-repository --yes ppa:kicad/kicad-dev-nightly was not a legal command on my distro so I doubt it will be possible to install the binaries, which gives me only the option to compile.

apt search (off course not aps - just a typo) just showd me old versions (5.1) so that was a no-go.
Lokks like I have to find out how to install libraries. Tried to use the library manager, but the .zip file I downloaded was not accepted, and when I unpacked the file, I could only see the different parts one by one. I’ll do some more digging. Might be there is a path-variable I have to set in Linux. Just have to find out how.

Have a nice day / evening / night - depending on where you are living. It’s 4 PM in Norway

Ulf

7

I’m not sure how much Raspbian or whatever it’s called has diverged from vanilla debian, but KiCad 5.1.8 is available in the backports repo for both armhf and arm64 (see https://packages.debian.org/buster-backports/kicad), so adding that to your apt sources might be enough.

In case you actually need 5.99, compiling yourself is probably the way to go. Libraries are never included in this case but are available on GitLab as @paulvdh already pointed out.

8

If you were able to compile KiCAD for Raspberry, I believe than you are able to clone the library repositores in to your system.

From the link posted by @pedro above:
## GitLab Libraries

KiCad libraries are community contributed and hosted on GitLab repositories at [gitlab.com/kicad/libraries](https://gitlab.com/kicad/libraries). If you wish to contribute to the libraries, refer to the [contribution guide](https://kicad.org/libraries/contribute/). It is also possible to keep your system libraries up to date with the latest additions by [cloning](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/gitlab-basics/start-using-git.html#clone-a-repository) the library repositories using Git. Tracking the library repositories using Git means that only the *changes* to the libraries need to be downloaded, rather than retrieving the entire library set each time.

### Library Repositories for KiCad 6.x

For KiCad version 6.x, the libraries are organised into four separate repositories (on GitLab):

* `kicad-symbols` - Schematic symbol libraries
* `kicad-footprints` - PCB footprint libraries
* `kicad-packages3d` - 3D model data (3D sources in `kicad-packages3d-source` )
* `kicad-templates` - Project templates
9

I’m pretty interested in this, not for me, but for educational purposes. If KiCad could be usable on this fruit, we can create non-profit labs for the future engineers.

Designing products based on RPi-CM and thinking to do something if I can get a decent performance.

10

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