gEDA-user: Documentation for learning EDA with gEDA?

[Daniel Martin <dtmartin2@earthlink.net>]

I tried sending this last night, but didn't know about the
must-be-subscribed-to-post policy.  So here goes again:

Is there any documentation/tutorial that leads one through the process
of taking an idea for an electronic circuit, capturing the schematic
with gschem, simulating the circuit with gnucap, and then getting a
reasonable board design with pcb?

Here's my situation:

I've never done any computer-aided electronics design (math majors
don't usually get to play with the same toys they give the engineers),
nor have I ever made my own PCBs.  I have wire-wrapped together some
things I've drawn up on paper, but now I have an idea for something a
slight bit larger, and I'd like to make a PCB of it if I can.  It
would also be nice if I could test a few things about my circuit
first, though I may end up using wire-wrapping for the testing if
using gnucap appears beyond me.

So far, trying to draw just a few simple designs in gschem has been
like pulling teeth compared to sketching them out on paper.  I have to
believe that I'm doing something very wrong, probably because I don't
understand the idioms common in EDA software.  Perhaps I just need
practice and more familiarity with the key bindings.

I guess what I'm really looking for is a document that introduces
gschem and friends to someone who's not familiar with any EDA
software.  Does such a thing exist?

On a slightly related note, I'm using lots of chips from the LS74*
family (the "TTL Cookbook" was a wonderful discovery) that include
many identical gates on one chip.  It occurs to me that if I choose
the wrong slot in my gschem capture for certain gates, the resultant
pcb is going to need way more layers than I care to pay for.  Is there
some program that can help me avoid resorting to trial-and-error to
pick the right slot for each gate?