Getting Start KiCAD 5.0

[Russ]

These discussions might help if you’re unable to simply replace 4.0.7 as I did.

I installed KiCad 5 but there are no libraries. (The default option for sym lib table setup is disabled)

On most systems the libraries can be installed seperately. Meaning it is possible to install kicad without libraries by accident. Most Linux distributions have split up the packages for kicad installation. One package only installs the software (KiCad itself) while others install the libraries. The reason for this is that the 3d model libs are now quite large. In addition this is how a lot of distros suggest this sort of thing to be handled (separation of installers for software and data) Si…

Library Downloads for KiCad 5.0
The official KiCad libraries are available for download at
https://kicad.github.io.
Library data are provided as compressed archives of the individual
libraries within the following categories:

Schematic symbols: https://kicad.github.io/symbols

PCB footprints: https://kicad.github.io/footprints

3D models: https://kicad.github.io/packages3d

Download Libraries

How to remap the schematic file so that kicad can properly lay out
a v.4 schematic in v.5. (pcb):

Symbol Links Keep Breaking

The libraries do not need some special work. (The lib file format did not change) But the schematic file needs to be remapped. The reason for this is that version 4 did not store the information about what library a symbol was taken. This meant that symbol names needed to be unique over all libs. In version 5 the library information is included in the schematic file. (So when transitioning from version 4 to version 5 this info needs to be added.) Normally everything should kind of happen au…