KiCad is an open-source software to create schematics, PCB layouts, and Gerber. KiCad can be used in Windows, Linux, and macOS, and licensed under GNU GPL v3. KiCad is made by Jean Pierre Charras, a professor in Grenoble University. KiCad is also sponsored by CERN and had several KiCad developments done under CERN employees. If you’re interested to develop KiCad, you can do it through CERN

I’m interested to try this application to do simple projects as a hobby. KiCad became the optimal choice because it is open source, which allows anyone to use it. Aside from that, KiCad also has a library which is updated weekly, accessible via GitHub. Adafruit which produces many modules and even development boards also used KiCad to create their products

Ubuntu Installation

I tried to install it using Ubuntu 18.04 this time, you can see the installation manual from this link: KiCad Ubuntu

I’ll explain how to install KiCad PCB v5 in Ubuntu 18.04. First, you need to add this ppa:

# add-apt-repository -y ppa:js-reynaud/kicad-5

(Ubuntu 16.04) If you’re using Ubuntu 16.04, use apt-get update before installing KiCad:

# apt-get update
# apt-get install kicad

You will download around 391MB using that command, and installing KiCad will take around 4,970MB disk space. After that’s done, you can open KiCad through a terminal or a launcher

I plan to start a series of articles using KiCad. I’ll talk about adding library through KiCad GitHub after this. Have fun trying KiCad!