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How to install KiCad on OSX

Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 11:32 pm
by Jammi
Here are some instructions about installing KiCad, which is an open-source EDA suite.

Puma's design files are in the format created by this app. The installation of KiCad might be pretty straight-forward on some Linux distros and Windows.

However, on Mac OS X, there was some RTFM involved, including reading conflicting or just plain old instructions which weren't applicable to OSX, so here's a simple all-in-one how-to to get started:

1: Install Bazaar either directly from its installation package or by running this in your shell (requires MacPorts):

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sudo port install bzr
2: Get KiCad. There are nightly builds available as tar-balls in http://brokentoaster.com/kicad/. I used kicad_osx_v3009_STABLE.tgz, which seems to generally work, although the GUI feels a bit glitchy. Extract the archive and move the folder into any appropriate location. The apps are in the "bin" directory and are regular ".app" bundles.

3: Get the KiCad library. KiCad uses /Library/Application Support/kicad and ~/Library/Application Support/kicad as hard-coded default locations to look for its library and modules files.

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cd ~/Library/Application\ Support
bzr branch lp:~kicad-lib-committers/kicad/library kicad
You are now ready to open KiCad files without messages about missing standard library and module files.

Re: How to install KiCad on OSX

Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 7:30 am
by Fred
Fantastic, most appreciated! BTW, welcome to the forum! I'm looking forward to any future posts by you, I have a good feeling about them :-)