V7 release just updated on my system!

The real number 7 or one of those fake nightly types?

Not here.
My platform must be still un-loved.

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Generally looks very nice for the short peek I had. I cannot load my database though:

I am not sure what to make of the error; perhaps I need to add a db driver. It was working properly on 6.99 with my db, but I removed 6.99 a few days back. This 7.0 release wrote over the 6.0.11 (or .12 maybe?).

Hi, KiCad’s flathub/flatpak packager here.

You seem to have installed KiCad via flathub as a flatpak. flatpak installations need the ODBC drivers via flatpak extensions, which you have to install manually. Currently there are:

flatpak install org.kicad.KiCad.ODBCDriver.sqliteodbc

for SQLite,

flatpak install org.kicad.KiCad.ODBCDriver.psqlodbc

for PostgreSQL, and

flatpak install org.kicad.KiCad.ODBCDriver.mariadb-connector-odbc

for MariaDB/MySQL.

Please note that builds on flathub are still in the process of being published as I am typing this. So the commands given above might only work in a couple of hours from now.

Also, please make sure to read Schematic Editor | 7.0 | English | Documentation | KiCad in case you want to use MySQL/MariaDB or PostgreSQL databases on your local machine, as you need to set up TCP connections to these DBs, due to flatpak sandboxing.

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V7.0.0 has been tagged on Master and a V7 fork created as V8 development started via V7.99

There is a Windows build in “Previous Releases”

Yes, that worked like a charm – thanks @jmaibaum ! Database now back in action.

The only other 7.0 update snag I ran into was my own fault: 7.0 updated automatically, but in my excitement at opening v7 I inadvertently neglected to import preferences and it created defaults. I have a lot of things tweaked to my liking so that was a bummer.

However, I was able to go to
/home/.var/app/org.kicad.KiCad/config/kicad
and found the old 6.0 folder as well as the newly-created 7.0 folder of default config stuff. I exited kicad, deleted the 7.0 folder and restarted kicad – then I directed it to import my old 6.0 prefs.

V7 looks great so far! A great big thanks to all the devs who have been busy getting this out to the world.

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May I install it directly over the 6.0? So I can keep all libraries etc?

What is your operating system?

7 should be installed the recommended way, including the Kicad libraries, then install copies of your personal libraries into 7 to avoid any problems.

V7.0.0 was just released. Any tips how to update 6.0.11 to 7.0.0 on macOS? Do I need to uninstall v6? Can I safely uninstall v6? Are update instructions available somewhere?

In the blog:

KiCad now builds and can be packaged correctly as native Apple silicon processors (M1, M2, etc). This means that KiCad no longer has to run in emulation mode under the latest Apple hardware.

Does this mean that the available universal build indeed has this native support already, or do I need to wait for a native build? It is not 100% clear from the above statement.

Windows 11 Pro 64bit

Then I think all the old projects will be converted to the 7.0 when I open them.
Hopefully I don’t get issues like for the CP and Polarized_CAP I got recentlry :slight_smile:

Yes, the provided builds are universal

You don’t need to uninstall V6, but because of how macOS software installation works, you do need to manually rename one of them if you want to keep them both around. So you could rename 6 to /Applications/KiCad 6.app and then drag the new one over, for example.

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Nice. And if I uninstall KiCad on macOS it won’t touch (ie, it won’t delete) the project/symbol/footprint/model files I have saved in Documents? Ie. uninstalling leaves user data alone as long as it is stored outside the app directories?

Yeah, uninstalling on macOS just means dragging the thing in the Applications folder to the trash, which won’t touch your other folders.

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KiCad 7 packages for openSUSE have appeared. I just let the packages update then chose the default settings in the first run dialogues. I then had to reregister my personal libraries which took me all of a few minutes. Actually I did it by grepping for my libraries in the 6.0 tables and injecting into the 7.0 tables after the first line so that my libraries would appear first.

Don’t have time to experiment further but my old project opens as usual. Well done, devs. And thanks to the packager for openSUSE too.

since my library list is quite substantial, i’ve found a shortcut to the setup process:
saved the sym-lib-table and fp-lib-table that are in the configuration directory of my user
~/.config/kicad/6.99 and copied in the new 7.99 dir.

If you feel particularly brave you can even copy the environment variables structure
in the new kicad_common.json config file:

  "environment": {
    "vars": {
      "EDLDB_DBLIB_DIR": "/media/cl/Data/EDL-SVN/_KiCAD_Libraries/DBLibs",
      .....
    }
  },

in order to avoid boring editing…
:grin:

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I would prefer if the warning about sandboxing was replaced with the need to install these drivers, as I very quickly got past the sandboxing issue with --filesystem=/run/postgresql to flatpak override, while it took me much, much longer to realize I needed to install more things (psqlodbc in my case).

I did have to specify the host path though, as the default was /tmp/ for some reason (which I guess makes the --filesystem trick swappable with a bind mount outside flatpak? I didn’t try that though)

For anyone else trying to set up postgres, here is what worked for me:

sudo flatpak override org.kicad.KiCad --filesystem=/run/postgresql
flatpak install flathub org.kicad.KiCad.ODBCDriver.psqlodbc

In my ~/.odbc.ini I have

[PostgreSQLLocal]
Description         = PostgreSQL Local UNIX socket DB
Driver              = PostgreSQL Unicode
Trace               = No
TraceFile           = /tmp/psqlodbc.log
Database            = MYDATABASENAME
Servername          = /var/run/postgresql/
UserName            = myusername
#Password            =
#Port                =
ReadOnly            = Yes
RowVersioning       = No
ShowSystemTables    = No
ShowOidColumn       = No
FakeOidIndex        = No
ConnSettings        =

And the kicad_dbl had:

...
    "source": {
        "type": "odbc",
        "dsn": "PostgreSQLLocal",
        "username": "",
        "password": "",
        "timeout_seconds": 2,
        "connection_string": ""
    },
...
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A post was split to a new topic: How to migrate from6 to 7 on Ubuntu Linux

I have created a merge request against kicad-doc to address your suggestions: Improve flatpak user notes for database libraries (!901) · Merge requests · KiCad / KiCad Web Services / kicad-doc · GitLab

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