kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Maciej Sumiński <maciej.suminski@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Bernhard,

The case is similar to other libraries, so KiCad will work with any
ngspice dll available in the system. The problem is, there is a bug in
the current ngspice release that may cause the simulator to hang up in
certain situations. As currently libngspice is not provided anywhere
(but Arch Linux), we need to build it ourselves and it is better to pick
a newer version that has the bug fixed.

Regards,
Orson

On 08/08/2016 03:35 PM, Bernhard Stegmaier wrote:
> Question for me is if a certain ngspice should be bundled with KiCad,
> or if KiCad just uses some ngspice that maybe is floating around on
> the machine.
> 
> The realdynamic loading of the library somehow suggest the latter,
> but I don't know how it is intended to be (if it was not intended like
> this, simply linking dynamically would have been enough?).
> 
> If it should be bundled, it more or less doesn't matter how the lib is
> built (at least for those not building on their own)
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Bernhard
> 
> On 08.08.2016 14:41, Adam Wolf wrote:
>> It would be nice if upstream supports it.  On the other hand, I'm
>> going to use it for my nightlies server regardless of what upstream
>> says...
>>
>> Thanks for your work and keep us posted as to how it goes!
>>
>> Adam Wolf
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 3:17 AM, Johannes Maibaum <jmaibaum@xxxxxxxxx>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Ok, I got that point with the patch wrong then, sorry.
>>>
>>> Well, I think that Homebrew usually does accept *-git or *-devel
>>> formulas (or how they call them), but it seems that as long as the
>>> ngspice devs are not willing to change their build system behaviour
>>> it won’t get merged anyhow.
>>>
>>> But, I have just asked the Homebrew devs if they think that a
>>> separate „libngspice“ formula that just builds the library would
>>> be OK for them.  Let’s see what comes out of this…
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Johannes
>>>
>>>> Am 08.08.2016 um 10:03 schrieb Maciej Sumiński
>>> <maciej.suminski@xxxxxxx>:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Johannes,
>>>>
>>>> Fortunately we do not need any KiCad-specific patches for ngspice,
>>> but
>>>> just a newer revision from the master repository. The only problem
>>> now
>>>> is the required revision is not available in the current ngspice
>>>> release, so anyway we are forced to build the library from source.
>>> On
>>>> the other hand, we need to do so, as the library is not provided
>>> by
>>>> default anywhere (almost), so there is no easier solution at the
>>> moment.
>>>>
>>>> Perhaps msys2 would accept another package (ngspice-git) that
>>> builds
>>>> using the official repository, but still we need the script for
>>> other
>>>> platforms.
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Orson
>>>>
>>>> On 08/08/2016 09:39 AM, Johannes Maibaum wrote:
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> just FYI, the Homebrew devs decided not to merge my PR for shared
>>> library support of ngspice.
>>>>>
>>>>> They say it’s a bug that should be fixed upstream, as the build
>>> system that ngspice uses should be able to handle the case of
>>> building the shared library and the executable in one go.  So they
>>> consider the „fix“ that Arch Linux (and MSYS2 as well by now?)
>>> of building two times in a row a „hack“ that is not acceptable
>>> for them.
>>>>>
>>>>> The ngspice devs say that it’s not a bug and that they won’t
>>> fix it, so everything will stay as before.
>>>>>
>>>>> But, if I understand Orson right, as the integration now needs at
>>> least one patch not included in the ngspice stable release, I think
>>> that now it is better to use his build script than continue to
>>> fiddle with the Homebrew formula.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Best,
>>>>> Johannes
>>>>>
>>>>>> Am 01.08.2016 um 16:01 schrieb Adam Wolf
>>> <adamwolf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'll make sure it works on the build server regardless of what
>>> homebrew does :)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Mon, Aug 1, 2016 at 8:29 AM, Maciej Sumiński
>>> <maciej.suminski@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>>> Hi Johannes,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Cool! I am really grateful for your fixes - they are already
>>> merged and
>>>>>> I am going test them with Linux and Windows. I really hope
>>> homebrew
>>>>>> developers will accept your formula soon, as it would make
>>> getting
>>>>>> ngspice library so much simpler.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>> Orson
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 08/01/2016 12:40 PM, Johannes Maibaum wrote:
>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Bernhard’s hint gave me a working wx installation again, and
>>> I now got the
>>>>>>> simulator running on OSX (see attached screenshot). Yay!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I did some initial clicking around in the GUI after loading the
>>> rectifier
>>>>>>> example and so far it seems that all functionality is there and
>>> does work as
>>>>>>> intended.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> And it seems that I was guessing right, the wxCursor
>>> construction process needs
>>>>>>> the same codepath on OSX as on MSW.  Both the “probe” and
>>> the “tune” cursors
>>>>>>> work here (unfortunately not visible in the screenshot).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Here’s a final wrap-up so far:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> - The patch I sent to the list yesterday for Adam contains all
>>> the needed
>>>>>>> changes to get Tom’s ngspice branch to work on OSX (except
>>> for possible bugs I
>>>>>>> did not yet encounter).  I created a pull-request on Github for
>>> Tom to merge. [1]
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> - libngspice needs to be compiled and installed manually to one
>>> of the usual
>>>>>>> library locations at the moment.  As it seems that this is the
>>> same on Windows
>>>>>>> and Linux for now, I did no further investigations how to
>>> modify the CMAKE
>>>>>>> scripts to bundle and link libngspice into the app bundle (as
>>> I’m no expert with
>>>>>>> build systems).  I have a hacky but working patch to
>>> Homebrew’s ngspice formula
>>>>>>> that builds the shared library, which got not yet merged into
>>> homebrew-core [2].
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Best,
>>>>>>> Johannes
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> [1] https://github.com/twlostow/kicad-dev/pull/2 [1]
>>>>>>> [2] https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/pull/3367 [2]
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Am 31.07.2016 um 23:13 schrieb Johannes Maibaum
>>> <jmaibaum@xxxxxxxxx
>>>>>>>> <mailto:jmaibaum@xxxxxxxxx>>:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Am 31.07.2016 um 23:02 schrieb Adam Wolf
>>> <adamwolf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>>>>>> <mailto:adamwolf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Thanks!  This is good work! I'll start working with it on my
>>> test machine,
>>>>>>>>> and it will be first in line after the cvpcb crash in the
>>> nightlies (which is
>>>>>>>>> first in line after 4.0.3) :)
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Adam Wolf
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Thanks a lot, Adam!
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> As Bernhard has just pointed me towards the wx patch I
>>> obviously missed to
>>>>>>>> include in my build, I might be able to test my own patch on
>>> my machine later
>>>>>>>> tomorrow.  I will report back here how it turns out.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Best,
>>>>>>>> Johannes
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>> Post to     : kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> Post to     : kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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>>
>>
>>
>> Links:
>> ------
>> [1] https://github.com/twlostow/kicad-dev/pull/2
>> [2] https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/pull/3367
>> [3] https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers
>> [4] https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>> _______________________________________________
>> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers
>> Post to     : kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers
>> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
> 
> 
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