New-ish user silly questions/comments

Software
1

Hi there,

Did a little bit of looking around, and I honestly don’t know if this is the right place for this, but here goes:

I’m a recently retired mechanical engineer wanting to the learn the ins and out of PCB design.

Doing some innerweb spelunking I find KiCAD, an amazing resource. I’m referencing v7.0 for what it’s worth.

I install KiCAD on my Windows box, and all is well in the world. I’ve ponied up for Peter Dalmaris’ course and I’m on my way.

In a similar path, I’ve embraced the Linux desktop on a slightly unused machine in the way of Elementary OS.

I dual boot this machine and have a separate drive with my working files that I’ve permanently mounted via fstab into my /mnt folder. I’ve also created symbolic links to these mounts into my /home folder (for the file finder to reference). All is well with all these things…

I’ve installed notepadqq via snap and can run it via /snap/bin/notepadqq from a CLI.

I get KiCAD installed.

Firstly I get to define the text editor, and I can enter the above into the Preferences/Text Editor box. Alas KiCAD spits at me when I attempt to edit a text document, in this case a README.md from the StickHub demo project, saying that “Command ‘/snap/bin/notepadqq’ cannot be found”.

Even more problematic is when I go to create a new project. H’mmm, KiCAD spits at me some more.

Clicking on Home (on the left side of the window) in the dialog box, my only folder option there is “Desktop”. None of my symbolic links are displayed.

Clicking on any of the “symbolic links” on the left side of the window displays the root folder, without the /mnt folder.

If it displayed the /mnt folder I could at least navigate there.

The amusing part is I’ve used the /mnt folder to define the library and symbol paths without any issues.

I’ve attempted to cut and paste the /mnt folder name into the Name: box and that spits as me as well.

So, I’m hoping some kind linux wizard out there can show me the error of my ways and get over these speed bumps.

thanks in advance,

chris

2

From inside the snap package, the utilities are accessed using “normal” paths, in this case probably /bin/notepadqq.

This is a snap thing, not inherent in KiCad. Similarly for your other path issues.

3

Actually, just “notepadqq” alone should work (without quotes). /bin is a standard $PATH environment variable in Linux.

4

well,

Typing /snap/bin/notepadqq in the CLI runs notepadqq, even from the root folder.

Just typing notepadqq from the CLI runs notepadqq

Typing /bin/notepadqq in the CLI it spits at me with “No such file or directory”

None of which works in KiCAD. :cry:

Thanks

5

It doesn’t work in the CLI but it will from a program that’s executed inside the snap sandbox i.e. the KiCad executable.

Snap and flatpak have quirks due to the sandboxing. Since Elementary OS is based on Ubuntu, you might want to consider installing the Ubuntu KiCad packages instead of using a snap.

6

Get rid of all that snap-cr*p, that’s what I do. Who needs another layer of abstraction? I don’t, it just causes confusion and issues.

1 Like
7

I installed KiCAD from the Ubuntu repositories. Only notepadqq was installed via snap.

The main issue is file access.

8

Why do you need to install a notepadqq snap? It’s available as an Ubuntu package:

Snaps and flatpaks run in sandboxes, thus attention must be paid to which parts of the filesystem are made accessible to the sandbox. If you are using symlinks you are probably accessing locations outside of the standard home directories and you have to some stuff to allow access. Sorry, I can’t give you details, I try to stay away from snaps and flatpaks unless I have to.

9

Why? Looking at the Notepadqq site it’s a normal APT package.

The very first thing I do on a new Ubuntu installation is to nuke snapd. Then I know I have a working and stable system.

10

Well,

That was amusing.

Interesting lesson in the myriad of ways to install applications in Linux.

As it turned out, I had installed KiCAD as a flatpak.

Removing that and installing both notepadqq and kicad via apt install resolved both issues.

Lesson learned.

thanks

11

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