GEDA
Encyclopedia
- A set of software applications (CAD tools) used for electronic design released under the GPL. As such, gEDA is an ECAD (electronic CAD) or EDA (electronic design automationElectronic design automationElectronic design automation is a category of software tools for designing electronic systems such as printed circuit boards and integrated circuits...
) application suite. gEDA is mostly oriented towards printed circuit boardPrinted circuit boardA printed circuit board, or PCB, is used to mechanically support and electrically connect electronic components using conductive pathways, tracks or signal traces etched from copper sheets laminated onto a non-conductive substrate. It is also referred to as printed wiring board or etched wiring...
design (as opposed to integrated circuitIntegrated circuitAn integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material...
design). The gEDA applications are often referred to collectively as "the gEDA Suite". - The collaborative of free softwareFree softwareFree software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
/open-source developers who work to develop and maintain the gEDA toolkit. The developers communicate via gEDA mailing lists, and have participated in the annual "Google Summer of CodeGoogle Summer of CodeThe Google Summer of Code is an annual program, first held from May to August 2005, in which Google awards stipends to hundreds of students who successfully complete a requested free or open-source software coding project during the summer...
" event as a single project. This collaborative is often referred to as "the gEDA Project".
The word "gEDA" is a conjunction of "GPL" and "EDA". The names of some of the individual tools in the gEDA Suite are prefixed with the letter "g" to emphasize that they are released under the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
.
History
The gEDA project was started by Ales Hvezda in an effort to remedy the lack of free softwareFree software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
EDA tools for Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
/UNIX
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
. The first software was released on 1 April 1998, and included a schematic capture program and a netlister. At that time, the gEDA Project website and mailing lists were also set up.
Originally, the project planned to also write a PCB layout program. However, an existing open-source layout program, "PCB", was soon discovered by the project. Thereafter, the ability to target netlists to PCB was quickly built into the gEDA Project's netlister, and plans to write a new layout program from scratch were scrapped. Meanwhile, developers working on PCB became affiliates of the gEDA Project.
Other open-source EDA programs were created at about the same time. The authors of those programs became affiliated with the gEDA website and mailing lists, and the collaborative gEDA Project was born.
At present, the gEDA Project remains a federation of software tools developed by different (but sometimes overlapping) programmers. The thread which holds the project together is the shared vision of creating a powerful, community-based, open-source EDA toolkit.
Detailed Description
Loosely speaking, the term "gEDA Suite" refers to all free softwareFree software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
projects and applications that have associated themselves with the gEDA Project via the geda-dev/geda-user mailing lists. These include:
- gEDA/gaf - gschem and friends (the original project)
- PCBPCB (software)PCB is an open source software suite for electronic design automation - for printed circuit boards layout.-History:PCB was not the first written by Thomas Nau for an Atari ST in 1990 and ported to UNIX and X11 in 1994...
- PCB layout program - Gerbv - Gerber fileGerber FileThe Gerber format is a file format used by printed circuit board industry software to describe the images of a printed circuit board . The Gerber format is the de-facto industry standard for printed circuit board image transfer.There are two versions. RS-274X is the most commonly used today...
viewer - ngspice - a port of Berkeley SPICESPICESPICE is a general-purpose, open source analog electronic circuit simulator.It is a powerful program that is used in integrated circuit and board-level design to check the integrity of circuit designs and to predict circuit behavior.- Introduction :Unlike board-level designs composed of discrete...
- GnuCap - A modern electronic circuit simulationElectronic circuit simulationElectronic circuit simulation uses mathematical models to replicate the behavior of an actual electronic device or circuit.Simulation software allows for modeling of circuit operation and is an invaluable analysis tool...
program - gspiceui - A GUIGuiGui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...
front end for ngspice/GnuCap - gwave - An analog waveform viewerWaveform viewerA waveform viewer is a software tool for viewing the signal levels of either a digital or analog circuit design.Waveform viewers comes in two varieties:# simulation waveform viewers for displaying signal levels of simulated design models, and...
- gaw - An analog waveform viewerWaveform viewerA waveform viewer is a software tool for viewing the signal levels of either a digital or analog circuit design.Waveform viewers comes in two varieties:# simulation waveform viewers for displaying signal levels of simulated design models, and...
a rewrite of gwave. Works with gspiceui. - Icarus Verilog - A VerilogVerilogIn the semiconductor and electronic design industry, Verilog is a hardware description language used to model electronic systems. Verilog HDL, not to be confused with VHDL , is most commonly used in the design, verification, and implementation of digital logic chips at the register-transfer level...
simulator - GTKWave - A digital waveform viewerWaveform viewerA waveform viewer is a software tool for viewing the signal levels of either a digital or analog circuit design.Waveform viewers comes in two varieties:# simulation waveform viewers for displaying signal levels of simulated design models, and...
- wcalc - Transmission lineTransmission lineIn communications and electronic engineering, a transmission line is a specialized cable designed to carry alternating current of radio frequency, that is, currents with a frequency high enough that its wave nature must be taken into account...
and electromagnetic structure analysis
Within the gEDA Suite, gEDA/gaf ("gaf" stands for "gschem and friends") is the smaller subset of tools grouped together under the gEDA name and maintained directly by the gEDA project's founders. GEDA/gaf includes:
- gschem - A schematic captureSchematic captureSchematic capture or schematic entry is a step in the design cycle of electronic design automation at which the electronic diagram, or electronic schematic of the designed electronic circuit is created by a designer...
program - gnetlist - A netlistNetlistThe word netlist can be used in several different contexts, but perhaps the most popular is in the field of electronic design. In this context, a "netlist" describes the connectivity of an electronic design....
generation program - gsymcheck - A syntax checker for schematic symbols
- gattrib - A spreadsheetSpreadsheetA spreadsheet is a computer application that simulates a paper accounting worksheet. It displays multiple cells usually in a two-dimensional matrix or grid consisting of rows and columns. Each cell contains alphanumeric text, numeric values or formulas...
program for editing symbol attributes on a schematic. - libgeda - Libraries for gschem, gnetlist, and gsymcheck
- gsch2pcb - Forward annotation from schematic to layout using pcb
- Assorted utility programs
Linux
Because one of the gEDA Project's longstanding goals is to provide a suite of EDAElectronic design automation
Electronic design automation is a category of software tools for designing electronic systems such as printed circuit boards and integrated circuits...
applications for Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, all applications in the gEDA Suite compile and run on Linux. Besides building the programs from source, binary executables for all programs in the gEDA Suite are available from popular package archives; the programs may be installed on many common Linux distribution
Linux distribution
A Linux distribution is a member of the family of Unix-like operating systems built on top of the Linux kernel. Such distributions are operating systems including a large collection of software applications such as word processors, spreadsheets, media players, and database applications...
s using package management tools such as apt-get and yum.
Unix
All gEDA applications will also compile and run on other Unix-likeUnix-like
A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification....
operating systems, such as FreeBSD
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...
and NetBSD
NetBSD
NetBSD is a freely available open source version of the Berkeley Software Distribution Unix operating system. It was the second open source BSD descendant to be formally released, after 386BSD, and continues to be actively developed. The NetBSD project is primarily focused on high quality design,...
. Some of these distributions also support installation of pre-packaged binaries using package management utilities.
Mac OS X
Most gEDA applications also install and run successfully on Mac OS XMac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
, typically using the Fink package manager
Fink
The Fink project is an effort to port and package open-source Unix programs to Mac OS X. Fink uses dpkg and APT , as well as its own frontend program, fink ....
and Macports
MacPorts
MacPorts, formerly called DarwinPorts, is a package management system that simplifies the installation of software on the Mac OS X and Darwin operating systems. It is a free/open source software project to simplify installation of other free/open source software...
. Since few commercial EDA tools run on the Mac, this feature has made gEDA a popular electronic design package amongst Mac users.
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
support is currently not a primary project goal. Nonetheless, some programs in the gEDA Suite have built-in hooks for Windows support, and those programs will build and run under Windows. However, binary executables for most of the gEDA Suite are not distributed by the gEDA Project.
Community
An important feature of the gEDA Project is the strong user community it has created. The gEDA mailing lists have several hundred subscribers, and a large percentage of those subscribers are deeply knowledgeable electronics experts. Accordingly, the gEDA mailing lists have become a focal point not only for information related to the gEDA applications, but also for exchange of general electronic design information.As a consequence of the project's openness, schematic symbols, footprints, and utility scripts are freely created and shared amongst the members of the gEDA community at a spin-off website, www.gedasymbols.org.
External links
- gEDA Project Homepage
- Circuit Design on Your Linux Box Using gEDA — Overview article in the Linux Journal
- gsch2pcb tutorial — How to go from schematic to pcb layout
- Using gEDA — Another tutorial describing how to use the gEDA Toolset.