PC Board Design With Unix?

BORRIS asks: "I work for an engineering research firm and I am trying to get our current NT network replaced by Linux. We already have Linux servers and all that stands between me and Nirvana is the collection of the NT Workstations. Most people here use StarOffice now which is good, but the Electronics Division designs their PC Boards on an old program called Tango. Does anybody know of a good replacement for Tango that's written for Linux?" As far as I can determine, Tango was a DOS-based PCB design program that has since been replaced by a program called P-CAD 2000, which is (still) a Win32-only program.

GNU Electric

[PCGod]

I just downloaded GNU Electric a few days ago (I don't remember the URL atm, google found it for me). It looks like some great software. I haven't really had the time to play around with it much. It claims to be able to do PCB design as well as simulation work (which is something that I like as I don't understand verilog simulations very well). If this doesn't work for you, I'd have to agree with the other posts about using DOSemu or WINE to use your existing software.

<bitch>
Thanks, Cliff, for posting this Ask Slashdot now, instead of when I asked the same question a couple of months ago
</bitch>

I'm ok, really :-)

PCB Design

[RapaNui]

Here are a couple of links to try:
(I can't comment on any of them except PCB, which, although very simple, works fairly well and is quite intuitive to use).
MUCS-PCB [man.ac.uk]
PCB [jhu.edu]
SATCAD [uts.edu.au]

Also try Scientific Applications on Linux [kachinatech.com]

Random from the PCB Design Industry

[Mr. Foogle]

We're a PCB design bureau, I'm the system admin for a regional office.

We use Cadence's Allegro, Mentor, Veribest.

Veribest has been purchased by Mentor, and rebadged Mentor Expedition.

All versions are available in NT and Unix. We have Allegro in NT/Unix, Veribest in NT, and Mentor in Unix.

You don't say _why_ you have such a passion for converting to Linux (grin), but as regards your PCB Design software, my info is that, Mentor Graphics aside, nothing really works with Linux, yet. Someday, I'm told, but the big push seems to be porting everything to NT.

Editorial Digression: You can, I'm sure purchase a number of 'almost good enough' CAD solutions for PCB design. But the good stuff that allows quick and easy PCB design, that doesn't trip your designers, and works well, costs $$$$.

It's so expensive, that at our place we use Solaris, despite the drawback of expensive machines and software, when NT/Intel is so much cheaper. Why? The cost of the license and maintennance is so damned high, that the price of the OS/Hardware just doesn't factor in.

As an alternate - have you considered farming your design work out to a 3rd party? Give me a buzz, and I'll hook you up with our sales guy. (grin).

re: PC Board Design With Unix?

[jluscher]

A friend has used "Eagle" from http://www.cadsoftusa.com/ They have a Linux version and also a 'light' version you can try for free (functional but small board). James

Innoveda ViewLogic?

[BitMan]

I work for a fabless semiconductor design firm and we are almost entirely UNIX-based. We use Innoveda [innoveda.com] ViewLogic (see products associated with ViewDraw) for our schematic capture. At my previous employer, an aerospace firm, we also used ViewLogic for PCB Layout.

The only kicker is that ViewLogic is expensive for the UNIX version. As such, even we run the Windows version on some. But everything else, our Cadence, Mentor Graphics, Modeltech and Synopsys tools all run on either Solaris or, increasingly, Linux (as more and more vendors offer then).

-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith

Perhaps Mentor Graphics?

[Freshly Exhumed]

Mentor (torMentor to some!) has ported several of their IC and PCB tools to Red Hat Linux 6.0 over the last two years, so perhaps they might be a place to start: http://www.mentorgraphics.com [mentorgraphics.com].

tango

[daniel2000]

if tango is a dos app then it will *probably* be very well supported in emulation using dosemu or another dos emulator under linux - then no one has to learn new stuff...

Try Eagle

[kju]

Never heard of eagle? I thought it was an very successfull pcb design software. As far as i know it has all the features a decent software package for pcb design needs.

They have linux versions available for years now, you can download a free or lite version for tryout as well as tons of component libraries from their webpage. See http://www.cadsoft.de