[intlplby]

anyone know of any free software to do PCB layouts for OS X....

 

[Nisbeth]

Eagle is available for OS X (www.cadsoft.de)

/U.

 

[intlplby]

danke

 

[JHouser]

Ok, For us non Unix/X11 guru's. How the heck to you install and run eagle for OSX? I'm mildly confused

Thanks
Jonathan-

 

[Demolition]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JHouser Ok, For us non Unix/X11 guru's. How the heck to you install and run eagle for OSX? I'm mildly confused

Download the Eagle .tgz archive and decompress it. Inside the resulting folder, you'll find a text file (titled "README.txt") which contains detailed, step-by-step installation instructions.

D.

 

[peranders]

Anyone who has actually run Eagle on Mac? I have tested it on XP and it looks a bit ancient but nevertheless I'm pleased for every available pcb software on Mac. At the moment I'm using Mac 0S 9 on my old Mac and I will not change OS in the near future. My RUN Electronic Design System, runs only yon OS9 with ADB port.

 

[Nisbeth]

I'm using Eagle on OS X (the free version) and I'm pretty happy with it

It's not really easy to get started with but there are a large number of tutorials available online which makes it easier. I can't really compare it to other layout-packages such as Protel or Orcad, but it's certainly easier to work with than my previous choice for doing pcb-layouts (photoshop(!)

)

The only annoyance I can think of (apart from the board area limitation in the free version), is that the mac version will only open files and libraries created with Eagle 4.1 or later, which means many of the parts libraries and project files available online will not work. The solution is to get someone with a Win/Linux-version of Eagle to open the files and save them in the correct format

. Other than that, I think it's a great piece of software

/U.

 

[Nisbeth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JHouser Ok, For us non Unix/X11 guru's. How the heck to you install and run eagle for OSX? I'm mildly confused Thanks Jonathan-

Go to apple.com and do search for x11. Download and install the x11-program. Then unpack the eagle archive you've downloaded from cadsoft, place it your applications folder (or whereever you want it). Open the Eagle program by clicking the Eagle file in the "bin"-folder of the Eagle applications folder

When you can get the program to start up correctly, do a google search for "Eagle tutorial" to find out how the thing actually works

/U.

 

[tangent]

If you don't want to download X, it comes on your OS disks, in 10.3 at least. Downloading it probably gets you a newer version, though.

 

[JHouser]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nisbeth Go to apple.com and do search for x11. Download and install the x11-program. Then unpack the eagle archive you've downloaded from cadsoft, place it your applications folder (or whereever you want it). Open the Eagle program by clicking the Eagle file in the "bin"-folder of the Eagle applications folder When you can get the program to start up correctly, do a google search for "Eagle tutorial" to find out how the thing actually works /U.

Yea, Done everything even read the instructions! But still. It does not know how to open the eagle appy. It has that little Terminal icon by the eagle name. I launch X11, then go over to eagle double click and it asks me of which application would i like to launch eagle with.

j-

 

[tangent]

Quote:

even read the instructions!

Including this one, from EAGLE's README.txt?

"Start EAGLE by clicking on

/Applications/EAGLE-X11/bin/eagle

in the "Finder"."

 

[JHouser]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tangent Including this one, from EAGLE's README.txt? "Start EAGLE by clicking on /Applications/EAGLE-X11/bin/eagle in the "Finder"."

yes, of course. I'm obviously doing somthing totally bonehead here.
Does it launch terminal when you click on eagle in the bin folder? Or does it launch in a window in osx?

j-

 

[Syzygies]

Mine works just fine. When I click on Eagle in the bin directory in the Eagle application folder, it launches terminal and Eagle opens a bunch of windows.

X is an inefficient, poorly written windowing system, widely distributed on Unix systems. What you get should look like a graphical Mac application, only lame. I've written code for both, Cocoa on the Mac is much more pleasant to program.

I suspect your X installation is hosed. Can you get anything to work in X? Otherwise, reinstall. I just installed Eagle a few weeks ago, I knew nothing and followed the directions, it worked without incident.

Are you ordering commercial boards? I much prefer Adobe Illustrator for drawing circuits, home etching is supposed to be freehand, this preserves that spirit.

 

[Syzygies]

Doh! X itself is an application you have to run first, and keep running.

Mine was already running, when I just tried again for you. I must have launched it since the last time I shut down my laptop for a flight. (Macs never crash...)

 

[Ozymand]

Tell that to Steve Jobs when it crashed (twice!) during his MacWorld address.

No Mac/Windows/Linux advocacy here, just having some fun.

If you're into trying something that is fairly new, you could try gEDA. I personally haven't tried it yet, but a few friends have goofed around in it. It's definitely an application in development, but it may be an interesting tool to learn/use if you don't mind.