How does kicad add multiple footprint libraries at once?

Software
#1

Hello,

I tried to install Kicad using this command (sudo apt install --install-recommends kicad), but it’s missing the footprint libraries (~/.local/share/kicad/6.0/footprints/).

I found the libraries (Download Libraries | KiCad EDA), but I can’t find a way to add all the libraries at once. There are many libraries, how do I add them all at once?

I used Kicad 5, and the installation made it ready for use, but Kicad 6 is not ready for use after installing. Why is setup not installing the libraries?

Thank you.

#2

I found the way. You have to replace or edit the reference table “fp-lib-table” located at “~/.config/kicad/6.0/”

The manually downloaded library has a file “fp-lib-table”, but I had to edit it, because some files were not found.

Ref.: Where are the configuration files (settings, library tables)?

3 Likes
#3

Hmm? If you installed the KiCad libraries using packages pulled in by --install-recommends, then the system footprint libraries are at: /usr/share/kicad/footprints You should not need to download the libraries separately.

1 Like
#4

You haven’t said what your Linux distribution is. They vary a lot in package setup

#5

On my Linux box KiCad installed the footprint libraries in:

/usr/share/kicad

Did you install the footprints via your package manager? Does it know the libraries are installed? I’m hinting here at a possible fault in the packaging for your Linux distribution.

#6

Yes, that information would be useful. However the use of apt narrows it down to Ubuntu or Debian based distros. Also mainline distros tend to be similar in where they place assets, due to the Linux FHS and the fact that the package build spec files usually do minimal adaptations of the application build spec files.

Sole users of Linux can forget that their account is only one of potentially many human accounts on the host. (There are lots of system accounts of course, for privilege separation.) This fact informs the corollary that a distro package never installs anything in a user directory (which user(s) would it be?). If anything is to be created or updated in a user directory, it’s done by later scripts. Which leads to the problem of first run scripts not picking up libraries that are not yet installed.