Debian Electronics CAD tools with GUI packages

Fritzing is an open source project designed to help one transition from a prototype to a finished project. Aimed at users who want to produce or document circuits and experiments, one starts by building a physical prototype, then recreating it with Fritzing’s graphical editor. From there one can generate a schematic, PCB artwork, and PCB production files.

Kicad is a suite of programs for the creation of printed circuit boards. It includes a schematic editor, a PCB layout tool, support tools and a 3D viewer to display a finished & fully populated PCB.

Kicad is made up of 5 main components:

• kicad - project manager
• eeschema - schematic editor
• pcbnew - PCB editor
• gerbview - GERBER viewer
• cvpcb - footprint selector for components

Libraries:

• Both eeschema and pcbnew have library managers and editors for their components and footprints
• You can easily create, edit, delete and exchange library items
• Documentation files can be associated with components, footprints and key words, allowing a fast search by function
• Very large libraries are available for schematic components and footprints
• Most components have corresponding 3D models

The Lepton EDA suite provides schematic capture, netlisting, bill of materials generation, and many other features. It was forked from the gEDA/gaf suite in late 2016.

Oregano is a GNOME application for schematic capture and printing of electronic circuits. It can simulate the circuits using Gnucap, ng-spice or Berkeley spice.

PCB is an interactive printed circuit board editor for the X11 window system. PCB includes a rats nest feature, design rule checking, and can provide industry standard RS-274-X (Gerber), NC drill, and centroid data (X-Y data) output for use in the board fabrication and assembly process. PCB offers high end features such as an autorouter and trace optimizer which can tremendously reduce layout time.

pcb-rnd is a highly modular PCB (Printed Circuit Board) layout tool with a rich set of plugins for communicating with various external design tools and other EDA/CAD packages.

Feature highlights:

• subcircuits, pad stacks
• flexible footprint model; unrestricted pad shapes
• arbitrary copper, silk, paste and soldermask objects
• sophisticated, flexible layer model
• flexible/universal polygon model
• any object, even polygons, can have a clearance within a polygon
• advanced mil and mm grid, with support for mixed unit design
• strong CLI support
• static footprints and parametric (generated) footprints
• query language for advanced search & select
• powerful, user scriptable, modular Design Rule Checker (DRC)
• layout optimizers such as teardrops and a trace puller
• footprint library from local file systems, HTTP and board files
• netlist management: imported and as-built; back annotation

File formats and compatibility:

• text based, tree structured native file format (lihata)
• import board:
  • Altium PcbDoc ASCII board
  • autotrax PCB board, version 4
  • autotrax PCB board, version 5
  • dsn board
  • eagle xml board version 6, 7, 8
  • eagle binary board version 3, 4, 5
  • hyperlynx board, version 2 and above
  • kicad board, version 3, 4 and 5 (s-expr)
  • lihata pcb-rnd board (any version)
  • PADS ASCII board
  • gEDA/PCB .pcb board (any version up to 2017)
• export board:
  • anonimized board statistics in lihata
  • autotrax PCB board, version 4
  • specctra dsn board
  • hyperlynx board, version 2.0
  • kicad board, version 3 (s-expr)
  • kicad pcbnew-board, version 1 (legacy plain text format)
  • lihata pcb-rnd board (any version)
  • PADS ASCII board
  • gEDA/PCB .pcb board (various version up to 2017)
• import footprint:
  • BXL footprints
  • eagle xml footprint lib .lbr (as board)
  • eagle xml footprint lib .lbr (as footprint)
  • eagle binary footprint lib (as board)
  • lihata pcb-rnd footprint (any version)
  • Mentor Graphics cell footprints
  • gEDA/PCB .fp footprints
  • tEDAx footprint (any version)
• export footprint:
  • kicad module (s-expr, according to version 3)
  • kicad pcbnew-module (legacy plain text format)
  • lihata pcb-rnd footprint (any version)
  • gEDA/PCB .fp footprints
  • tEDAx footprint (any version)
• import netlist:
  • Accel ASCII netlists + footprint info
  • calay (netlists + footprint info)
  • flat netlist from EDIF
  • freepcb netlist + footprint info
  • gEDA/gschem (netlist + footprint info, running gnetlist)
  • import ltspice .net and .asc (netlist and footprint info)
  • flat .edf (netlist+footprint, produced by Mentor Graphics Design Capture)
  • pcb-rnd action script (netlist + footprint info)
  • schematics import by running a commandline
  • netlist import by running a commandline
  • gEDA netlist (plain text, no footprint info)
  • Orcad PCB II (netlist + footprint info)
  • PADS ascii (.asc, netlists + footprint info)
  • Protel netlists 2.0 + footprint info
  • sch-rnd sheet (netlist + footprint info, running sch-rnd)
  • sch-rnd project (netlist + footprint info, running sch-rnd)
  • Ringdove project (netlist + footprint info, running sch-rnd)
  • tinycad .net (netlists + footprint info)
  • eeschema netlist and footprint info
  • tEDAx netlist (any version)
• export netlist:
  • tEDAx netlist (any version)
• export image:
  • render in .png
  • render in .gif
  • render in .jpeg
  • render black&white postscript (single or multiple files)
  • render black&white or color embedded postscript (single file)
  • pro (projector: 3d rendering)
  • svg (Scalable Vector Graphics)
• import misc:
  • HPGL plot (lines, arcs, polygons)
  • MUCS unixplot .pl (lines and vias)
  • ttf font
  • specctra .dsn (route result: wires and vias)
  • specctra .ses (route result: wires and vias)
  • eagle DRU (design rules)
  • lihata pcb-rnd font (any version)
  • gEDA/PCB font
  • tEDAx drc
  • tEDAx pcb-rnd drc script
• export misc:
  • bom (Bill of Materials, text, templated)
  • .dxf (2D drawing for mech CADs)
  • excellon drill/cnc (for PCB fabbing)
  • fidocad .fcd (partial export)
  • export gcode (for milling)
  • gerber for PCB fabbing
  • IPC-D-356 Netlist (for automated testing)
  • printer (using ps)
  • list of terminal connections (old, custom format)
  • OpenEMS (simulation, matlab files)
  • openscad script (colored 3D model)
  • stl (3d triangulated surface model)
  • amf (Additive Manufacturing File, surface model)
  • geda/PCB xy
  • gxyrs
  • Macrofab's pick&place
  • pick&place file for the TM220/TM240 device
  • KiCad .pos file
  • IPC-D-356 Netlist (from automated testing)
  • lihata pcb-rnd font (any version)
  • tEDAx etest
  • tEDAx drc
  • tEDAx pcb-rnd drc script

QElectroTech is a Qt5 application written in C++ . This program helps you to design electrical schematic diagrams. It includes a schematic editor, an element editor, and a titleblock editor. It uses XML files to store the produced contents.

Simulide is a real time electronic circuit simulator intended for hobbist and student experimentation with simple general purpose electronic circuits and PIC, AVR and Arduino microcontroller simulations.

TkGate is a digital circuit editor and simulator with a Tcl/Tk based interface. TkGate includes a large number of built-in devices including basic gates, memories, ttys and modules for hierarchical design. The simulator can be controlled either interactively or through a simulation script. Memory contents can be loaded from files, and a microcode/macrocode compiler (gmac) is included to create tkgate memory files from a high-level description. The simulator supports continuous simulation, single step simulation (by clock or epoch) and breakpoints. Save files are in a Verilog-like format.

TkGate also includes a number of tutorial and example circuits which can be loaded through the "Help" menu. The examples range from a simple gate-level 3-bit adder to a 16-bit CPU programmed to play the "Animals" game.

TkGate has a multi-language interface with support for English, Japanese, French and Spanish.