Is V6.99 gone, and what should I switch to?

Software
#1

I had been using kicad-nightly for over a year, and sometime in the last week or so a routine apt-get update of it caused me to get a new version that’s switched from 6.99 to 7.0. I’m confused how I got 7.0, I thought doing an upgrade of kicad-nightly would at some point switch from 6.99 to 7.99. The only reason I was on 6.99 was because I didn’t notice the ugprade of kicad-nightly from 5.99 to 6.99 a while back, and I then used 6.99 for weeks while making lots of schematic and layout changes in my designs and it seemed too difficult to go back and redo them in 6.0 with an archived copy of my old kicad 5.99 files. So now I want to make sure I don’t botch it again and get stuck on 7.99 accidentally.

I want to transition to a stable release of 7.0 and no longer use nightly. What’s the best way for me to accomplish that at this point? I’m using Ubuntu 20.04LTS but would be happy to switch to 22.04LTS if that would help. I have both “kicad” and “kicad-nightly” installed, but I never use “kicad”. Here’s version info for both on one of my 22.04 machines:

kicad:

Version: 6.0.10-86aedd382b~118~ubuntu20.04.1, release build
Platform: Linux 5.4.0-135-generic x86_64, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK, KDE, x11
Date: Dec 18 2022 19:39:35

kicad-nightly:

Version: 7.0.0-rc1-unknown-f153ff8453~164~ubuntu20.04.1, release build
Platform: Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK, KDE, x11
Date: Jan 10 2023 20:33:13

Ubuntu 20.04LTS has new packages available for both kicad and kicad-nightly, and I’ve purposefully avoided upgrading to them because I’m unsure what major and minor version number they will be, and I’d like to avoid accidentally making changes to my schematics and layouts using an incorrect version that’d be incompatible with 7.0 stable going forward.

I have an Ubuntu 22.04LTS machine that I’ve never used kicad on, and I tried doing an install there just to see what version it’d get, and it was “6.0.2+dfsg-1, release build”

Thanks for any advice!

#2

you got 7.0.0-rc1 that is the nightly build that will be soon™ freezed to become the stable release 7.0
…i know it seems complicated but it is not

#3

You’re not on 7.99 because that’s not a thing yet. I’d stop updating right now (not sure if/how you an freeze a version in apt) or be really careful to not get 7.99 by accident and then uninstall kicad-nightly and install the regular kicad when really released.

1 Like
#4

I thought I read somewhere that released 7.0 will overwrite 6.0 – is that true?

I have 6.0.10 and frozen v6 projects from last year. I would like to keep 6.0.10 to open those. I realize you can open them with 7.0, but just simply opening and closing a v6 project with v7 changes the .kicad_pro and .kicad_prl files (or the dates at least, I have not looked further).

This is a problem for me as I have FDA requirements to freeze a project, and tool versions (same issue with firmware and gcc version…).

I have the 7.0rc1 nightly, and I would like the production v7 to replace that – can I do that?

thx, gil

#5

Thanks for the info. I didn’t realize nightly would go from X.99 to Y.0 before Y.99. I missed that step during the transition from 5.99 to 6.99. I guess I either didn’t upgrade kicad-nightly while it was 6.0.0-rc, or if I did, I never opened my schematics and layouts with the 6.0.0-rc build of kicad-nightly.

#6

There are several methods in Linux to download and archive packages so you can install them off-line, freezing a program to a version, setting updates to manual etc, but they all need a bit of studying of how they work (and it’s also distribution dependent). I must confess though that I have never looked very deep in those possibilities. When you start in this direction you can also get into problems with dependencies of packages.

#7

On fedora Linux 7.0.0-rc1 overwrites 6.0.10 automatically from the copr repository, and probably will do so when 7.0.0 stable comes (has not happened yet).
This is a thing that differs among different OS:es.

#8

Hi @milesgazic

With ubuntu,

6.0.11 will become 7.0.0 when 7.0.0 is released, just as 5.1.12 became 6.0.0 a year ago.
6.99 will become 7.99 when 7.99 is created, which won’t happen until 6.0.11 becomes 7.0.0. just as 5.99 became 6.99.

At the moment 6.99 has been re-named 7.0.0-rc. This 7.0.0-rc is not the soon to be released official 7.0.0 so…
7.0.0-rc will become 7.99 until, of course, the developers decide to rename 7.99 to 8.0.0-rc.

Clear as mud? :grin: :grin: :grin:

1 Like
#9

Can I (and how do I) keep my 6.0.10 and have 7.0-release overwrite the nightly, or at least install 7.0 alongside 6.0.10?
I am on (ubuntu-based) pop-os 22.04 lts. thx

#10

You can’t do this using the Ubuntu package manager. Although you can pin something at a certain version and prevent updates, you can’t install 7.0 stable alongside 6.0 stable.

The officially-supported way to do so is to use FlatPak to install different versions. You can also compile KiCad yourself and install it to a nonstandard location.

#11

@teletypeguy
Good question. I’ve never looked into it. :slightly_frowning_face:
I’m also on 22.04 (Mint 21.1)

I’ve been using 6.99 for about 9 months and only ever open 6.x.x for references to queries on this forum.
I’m quite happy to bid farewell to 6.x.x , however, I am strictly hobby these days.

#12

Hmm, I am getting into new linux territory installing flatpacks. From this page:
https://www.kicad.org/download/flatpak/
I tried the Download-on-Flathub button, got the install file but in starting it said I had the current stable version so it exited. Then I tried it from the terminal – took a while and exited when it was complete. Was not entirely certain where it was saved but I found files dated today and a script that ran 6.0 (in /var/lib/flatpak/app/org.kicad.KiCad/…). When this ran it looked just like my current 6.0.10 prog that runs from the pinned icon in the dock, and in fact the icon lit up as if I had run it there. Makes me wonder if that flatpack install just overwrote the exiting 6.0.10 install.
It is not mandatory that I have v6 running beside v7 (it would have been nice but I am sure there are good reasons under the covers). I have to meet a regulatory need for freezing the project and application version that built it, but I am now thinking I can meet that if I just get the v6 source and archive that along with the project files.
thx

#13

:sweat_smile: so clear that i haven’t realized that!

#14

No, you now just have two different 6.0.10 installs.

Keep in mind that FlatPak will also by default upgrade your 6.x to 7.x when 7.0.0 is released. So you will just need to avoid doing an automatic upgrade on it.

#15

Thanks. So as best as I can tell, they are stored here:

Files here have Jan 15 date, so I presume this is my original 6.0.10:
/home/gil/.local/share/flatpak/app/org.kicad.KiCad

Files here have yesterday’s date (when I did the flatpack cli install of 6.0.10):
/var/lib/flatpak/app/org.kicad.KiCad/current/active/export/share/applications/org.kicad.KiCad.desktop

And nightly stuff:
/usr/share/kicad-nightly/applications/org.kicad.kicad-nightly.desktop

I’ll see what changes when 7.0 production updates.