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Horizon – a free and open source electronic PCB design package

horizon-eda.org

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Re: Horizon – a free and open source electronic PCB design package

#11

Post by rspicer »

amaterasu wrote: post #7
rspicer wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same question -- I've been using Kicad on personal and light-duty professional projects for about 5 years (yeah, Altium is the real deal, but when you're making a small run of prototypes for a university lab, sometimes you use the tools you have). It definitely has some rough edges, but it's also got a very established ecosystem, so I feel like Horizon will have to be a massive improvement to compete.

I've been using Kicad for the same workloads as you, and Altium + Cadence for heavier ones over the years, and I must say they hit the nail on the head here with their comments about KiCad: https://horizon-eda.readthedocs.io/en/latest/why-another-eda... I'll have to find a simple project to test this out on though, because as you say, It needs to be a huge improvement on KiCad to warrant a switch.

Thank you for linking to this. That's a pretty compelling story he's telling, I'll have to give it a go if I can find a low-pressure project to experiment on it with!

Re: Horizon – a free and open source electronic PCB design package

#13

Post by roland35 »

tndl wrote: post #2

As someone who's pretty naive about EDA software, how does this compare to KiCad or Eagle?

It looks like they focused more on a streamlined parts manager, which to be honest is a weak point with kicad. In kicad you need to manage the symbols, layout, and manufacturing info all separately.

Re: Horizon – a free and open source electronic PCB design package

#15

Post by karotte »

osamagirl69 wrote: post #12
karotte wrote: post #8

Author here, ask me anything.

I am a KiCad user, should I switch to Horizon and why? From the docs it seems like your main selling point is a better library, why not just make a better library for KiCad?

As written in https://horizon-eda.readthedocs.io/en/latest/why-another-eda... changing the way how a PCB design tool handles libraries would certainly require a complete rewrite as the library structure permeates the entire codebase.

Starting from scratch also allowed me to trivially implement features that KiCad is missing, such as proper panelisation: https://blog.horizon-eda.org/progress/2020/04/05/progress-20...

Re: Horizon – a free and open source electronic PCB design package

#16

Post by luckydata »

karotte wrote: post #8

Author here, ask me anything.

I installed the software in a Windows 10 VM to try it out and it fails pretty early with a message that says:

Glib::Error: No GL implementation is available.

Couldn't find much to help me out figure out how to fix that issue, I assume it's some missing dependency but... where do I go from here?

Re: Horizon – a free and open source electronic PCB design package

#17

Post by karotte »

luckydata wrote: post #16
karotte wrote: post #8

Author here, ask me anything.

I installed the software in a Windows 10 VM to try it out and it fails pretty early with a message that says: Glib::Error: No GL implementation is available. Couldn't find much to help me out figure out how to fix that issue, I assume it's some missing dependency but... where do I go from here?

Gtk's and horizon's OpenGL requirements (3.3 core profile + extensions) likely aren't met by whatever graphics adapter your VM implementation provides.

Re: Horizon – a free and open source electronic PCB design package

#18

Post by karotte »

mbrumlow wrote: post #14
karotte wrote: post #8

Author here, ask me anything.

I have never done PCB design, but my projects are taking me that direction. Why should I learn Horizon vs Kicad first, or vise versa?

pro Horizon:

- library management that makes sense (though is a bit more complex than KiCad's)

- clean and modern UI

- fast-paced development (if there's a suggestion, that makes sense to me, I'll implement it)

pro KiCad:

- large library of parts

- has been around for a long time, so for every problem you may encounter, there's likely a forum post or so that describes a solution/workaround

- larger community

Re: Horizon – a free and open source electronic PCB design package

#19

Post by luckydata »

karotte wrote: post #17
luckydata wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I installed the software in a Windows 10 VM to try it out and it fails pretty early with a message that says: Glib::Error: No GL implementation is available. Couldn't find much to help me out figure out how to fix that issue, I assume it's some missing dependency but... where do I go from here?

Gtk's and horizon's OpenGL requirements (3.3 core profile + extensions) likely aren't met by whatever graphics adapter your VM implementation provides.

that helps, I checked and Parallels 15 only supports OpenGL 3.2. I think it would be a good idea to maybe improve the error message, or put a check in the installer.

Thanks for your work, as it currently stands I can't use it but I appreciate it exists nonetheless (I'm on a Mac).

Re: Horizon – a free and open source electronic PCB design package

#20

Post by popped »

karotte wrote: post #8

Author here, ask me anything.

Does it support:

Differential pair routing

Pin swapping... ie a differential pair where the pins can be reversed

Pin agnostic routing, ie a MCU or FPGA where it doesn't matter which pin is used

Incremental part placement, unlike kicad where all the footprints get dumped on the board in a big mess at the start

These are things that bother me most in kicad (it does have diff pair routing)

Thanks - looking forward to taking it for a spin

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