Well on the mailing list he always stated that he first wants to include the sym lib table stuff and that it is nowhere near finished. (Until he came forward at the end of summer with his merge request)
This IS good news 
12100 commits now and the commit rate is increasing, between a continuing file renaming and a lot of work on Eagle import
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From https://lists.launchpad.net/kicad-developers/msg34024.html:
“As soon as the few crash bugs are resolved, I will pull the trigger on the stable branch and release rc1.”
BTW, the board editor has finally received a main menu overhaul. The toolbar-only-action problems will mostly be gone, I think, and menu items are grouped (hopefully) more logically. It will take some time to be used to it, but it’s for the better. Try it as soon as you can if you are a nightly build user!
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5.0 branch is here! This means 5.0 rc1 will be available soon (just has to be built and packaged)
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So like… tonight? That would be cool.
A big change on Ubuntu, but as the footprint libraries are changed, you will need to update fp-lib-table in .config/kicad from /usr/share/kicad/template
Always rename the old file as a fp-lib-table-bak first
The notice about the availability of the RC1 will be on the blog?
Wayne mentioned somewhere on the mailing list that he plans to make a blog entry. Not sure when he will find time for it. (I think he is currently quite busy with getting kicad ready for the final v5 release.)
I’m new to PCB design and I’m about to build a DC-DC converter. So I’m wondering, I have Eagle 6.5 available and KiCad 4.0.7. Now I see that KiCad 5 is about to be released. Which one should I use to get going as fast as possible? Should I even use the KiCad 5 RC? I’m worried that version 4 might be too “dated” already.
Thanks.
Having just come from a much later version of EAGLE to Kicad 4.0.7 because of EAGLEs dimension restrictions, I’d say you’ll be fine with 4.0.7 for the time being.
See the FAQ topic about using nightlies, it’s somewhat relevant for RC1, too. But it’s quite stable. Your situation is such that there should be no big dangers in using 5 RCs - if you’re prepared for some bugs and out-of-date documentation. I suppose “new to PCB design” also means you do this for hobby, not for work. I have used nightlies for work, there have been some issues, but nothing I couldn’t handle.
If you’re just beginning and know nothing about KiCad up-to-date documentation may be important to you, especially because library handling has changed, libraries may not come automatically for your platform yet and in general it’s not the easiest part of KiCad to understand for a beginner. At least wait for installer/packages which include the new libraries. But on the other hand if you now start with 4 and soon migrate to 5 there may be problems which library changes… Oh well…
It’s for my thesis and involves AC-DC and DC-DC converters (with very recent MOSFETs) with filters, some controllers… It really just needs to work Also it’s a onetime project I probably won’t need to use CAD after this for quite some time.
It’s also more of a convenience things, I can easily install KiCAD on my OpenSuse PC, but university offers Eagle 6.5 only which means just for the PCB I would have to switch to another PC. Also, I like OSS
If it is one off, and you are new, the more important thing is to choose the path most traveled.
ie what do your colleagues and tutors know, who can you ask when you get stuck ?
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Especially as smps are one of the most critical layout circuits
Wayne Stambaugh has sent a message which has not yet appeared in the mailing list archive. He says: “Things have quieted down quit a bit so we should be close to an rc2 release.”
And: “Hopefully, there wont be a lot of critical bugs and we can roll out v5 by the end of April.”
It looks like RC2 will be actually packaged for more major platforms than linux, so it will probably be “released” in the proper sense of the word instead of just tagged. The nightly build have been and will be ahead of the RCs but they haven’t included the component libraries. I believe the released RC will be a complete standalone installation, at least I hope so.
I wasn’t sure if it is a lull or just the effects of Easter
edit 15 commits last night, so it was Easter