Schematic/PCB Design for Linux?

VanessaDannenberg asks: "Occasionally, I have been known to design the occasional circuit board. I've been using Eagle, but with the board size limit of 3x4 inches in the free version, and a $400 price tag to exceed this limit, it is time to consider a Free Open Source Software alternative. Not being a Linux programmer myself, I have checked into and ruled out gEDA, KiCAD, Electric, XCircuit, and a host of others as being too incomplete to replace Eagle. My requirements are pretty basic: Draw a schematic, make a board out of it, edit and autoroute it, export to Gerber, and do it all natively within Linux. So, with this in mind, what suggestions do you folks have?"

Software isn't the only open entity

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be so pessimistic. Some people give back to the community in forms other than cash and software. Maybe if he designs something useful, he'll share it with the world. Commercial tools present a high barrier for entry to the hobbyist, which discourages open source hardware.

Re:$400? Get real

[alienw]

Bleh. The Eagle autorouter is next to worthless. It can't do autoplacing, and it's not very smart. Unless all your boards consist of less than 10 through-hole parts, it generally can't route them worth a damn. Real autorouters cost a lot of money for a good reason. The one built into Eagle is a toy.

I like the PCB program. It integrates well with gschem (much better than how Eagle does it). It's a lot less buggy than Eagle (no annoying boogers and redraw bugs). It resembles a professional PCB layout tool a lot more than Eagle does. With a bit more work, it could easily compete with Protel.