KiCad product branch build instructions
There is an official install
script
available on the KiCad website, but it is currently hardcoded to
download & build revision 4756, which is tagged as 'pre-kiway'. The tag
name indicates that it is the last commit before an introduction of big
changes to KiCad. The changes are still in progress and may cause some
troubles every now and then (more
details).
If you want to run the bleeding-edge KiCad, you have two possible ways.
One is to modify the install script, so it fetches the newest version.
Still, sometimes you may find problems using the script, therefore here
you can find alternative, short instructions for getting the newest
version to work. Another difference is the manual below setups your
environment to use local footprint libraries instead of ones stored in
Github.
If you meet any problems - please let
me know. I would
rather make KiCad easy to build for everyone than force you to use
tricks.
Prerequisites
The following tools can be easily obtained from any distro package repository:
- cmake >= 2.8
- bzr & bzrtools
- wxwidgets-dev or wxgtk-dev >= 2.8
- libbz2
- cairo-dev
- glew-dev
- ssl-dev
- git
For deb based systems:
$ sudo apt-get install bzr bzrtools build-essential cmake libbz2-dev \
libcairo2-dev libglew-dev libssl-dev libwxgtk2.8-dev git
For rpm based systems (not tested by me):
$ sudo yum groupinstall "Development Tools"
$ sudo yum install bzr bzrtools bzip2-libs bzip2-devel cmake cairo-devel glew-devel wxGTK-devel openssl-devel git
Building
Fresh bazaar requires your credentials:
$ bzr whoami "Name Surname <name.surname@mail.com>"
Getting the source code & building:
$ bzr checkout --lightweight lp:kicad
$ mkdir kicad/build
$ cd kicad/build
$ cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
$ make -j<number of CPU cores>
<get yourself a cup of tea>
$ sudo make install
KiCad is now installed and ready to run.
Libraries
You may need a few libraries to start messing with hardware design (or you may draw them yourself, then skip the part below). I recommend you installing those, so you will not waste time drawing symbols for resistors & capacitors or 0603/0805/etc. footprints.
Symbols
Optionally, you may set up eeschema to you a custom folder instead of installing the library.
$ bzr checkout --lightweight lp:~kicad-product-committers/kicad/library kicad-library
$ mkdir kicad-library/build
$ cd kicad-library/build
$ cmake ..
$ sudo make install
Footprints
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/johnbeard/kicad_pretties.git footprints
$ cd footprints
$ ./initRepo.sh
$ git submodule init
$ git submodule update
$ cp /usr/local/share/kicad/template/fp-lib-table.for-pretty ~/fp-lib-table
Now you have to set enviromental variables (though I recommend using /etc/profile or equivalent):
$ export KISYSMOD=/path/to/repo/fetched/in/the/last/step
Documentation
$ bzr checkout --lightweight lp:~kicad-developers/kicad/doc
You may install it in a similar manner to symbol libraries, but these files are not critical to be placed in a specific location. Just downlaod the contents and store it wherever you like (read that as well! there are a lot of useful hints inside).