I keep hearing about CERN working on experiments builds. I even saw this awesome video of what they’re doing on YouTube. But when I go to the list of stable builds, I can’t see any way to get to them. How do I do that? And should I bother?
You can definitely learn more about how to build from source. There is a list of resources over at our main site, KiCad.info or you can check out the official KiCad page for more info on how to do builds.
As for the question of whether you should use the experiment builds? Well, that’s a different question. I think it’s all about risk tolerance. There is a very real possibility that you could break the project you are working on by using a piece of experimental software. For some people, this isn’t a big deal. Personally, I would rather use slightly older software that I understand the quirks. I think a best case scenario might be to run a virtual machine (with Ubuntu or similar) and have the experimental build running on there while your main machine runs a more well-known version.
Also of note, there are sometimes unrevisible upgrade paths between versions. You should be notified of this (if the new version will be updating your files to something that is not compatible with the version software that created them), but you should know that newer versions aren’t necessarily going to output files that you can use with older software.
1 Like
I have been building and using the current bzr version for the last couple of weeks without issues. I really like some of the new features, so for me, the benefit outweights the risk.
If you have proper roll-back strategies and are curious enough, go for it.
I’ve been using the Install script for Ubuntu from this link
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~kicad-product-committers/kicad/product/view/head:/scripts/kicad-install.sh
and it includes the CERN PnS routing and other goodies.
1 Like
Some Cern features were recently merged into main trunk.
For windows users, the latest winbuilder works well for me (automatic kicad build framework by Brian Sidebotham, https://launchpad.net/kicad-winbuilder ), try it!
If you want to use the CERN options you have to install one of the latest builds. But even then it took me a while (and some intensive googling) before I figured out that the CERN options are only available when you select the “open-gl” or “Cairo” workspace. You can switch workspaces by selecting them in view. Or by pressing F9, F11 or F12.
Note that other than the default workspace is (very) buggy in the latest builds (at least for me). So safe a lot and return to default when you don’t need CERNs functions (F9).
This is a good source for precompiles builds: http://kicad.nosoftware.cz/