Re: gEDA-user: overwhelmed and dazed newbie

[sdb@xxxxxxxxxx (Stuart Brorson)]

> > The first I'd like to ask is: just how do you find out what the list
> > of footprints are and what they map to?  For instance: if I am
> > inserting an oscillator how do I specify its foot print.  It will
> > fit in a 14 pin DIP wire wrap socket but only uses 4 pins....
> 
> Open up a blank pcb, use the Window->Library option to bring up the
> library view, and start putting footprints on the board and see what
> they look like :-)

Would that this were true!  Unfortunately, several sub-libs of M4
footprints work when you place them from within the PCB lib windows,
but they can't be found by gsch2pcb.   Accordingly, these footprints
are useless, and using the PCB library browser is also not a good way
to find footprints!  I found this the hard way while
preparing an entry for the wiki.  

Please take a look at my wiki entry,

http://geda.seul.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=geda:pcb_tips#i_want_to_use_pcb_to_do_layout._how_do_i_know_what_value_to_use_for_the_footprint_attribute

I recommend only the ~geda M4 lib if you insist on using the M4
footprint library since several other libs fail consistently.  The key
is that the failing libs don't have identical entries for package and
name in the pcblib.contents file.  Please read my wiki entry (above)
for more info.

I will be happy to locate some failing M4 libraries for anybody who
wants to try fixing this problem (I have forgotten
which ones fail right now).  In any event, I think newbies should
stick to the newlib since the M4 lib is a minefield of bugs.

Stuart