Installation

KiBot main target is Linux, but some users successfully use it on Windows. For Windows you’ll need to install tools to mimic a Linux environment. Running KiBot on MacOSX should be possible now that KiCad migrated to Python 3.x.

You can also run KiBot using docker images in a CI/CD environment like GitHub or GitLab. In this case you don’t need to install anything locally.

Dependencies

Notes:

• When installing from the Debian repo you don’t need to worry about dependencies, just pay attention to recommended and suggested packages.

• When installing using pip the dependencies marked with will be automatically installed.

• The dependencies marked with can be downloaded on-demand by KiBot. Note this is poorly tested and is mostly oriented to 64 bits Linux systems. Please report problems.

• The kibot-check tool can help you to know which dependencies are missing.

• Note that on some systems (i.e. Debian) ImageMagick disables PDF manipulation in its policy.xml file. Comment or remove lines like this: <policy domain="coder" rights="none" pattern="PDF" /> (On Debian: /etc/ImageMagick-6/policy.xml)

• Link to Debian stable package.

• This is a Python module, not a separated tool.

• This is an independent tool, can be a binary or a Python script.

Lark :

• Mandatory

PyYAML :

• Mandatory

Requests :

• Mandatory

KiCad Automation tools : v2.3.1

• Mandatory for: dxf_sch_print, gencad, hpgl_sch_print, netlist, pdf_pcb_print, pdf_sch_print, ps_sch_print, render_3d, run_drc, run_erc, step, svg_pcb_print, svg_sch_print, update_xml, vrml

• Optional to:

  • Compare schematics for diff (v2.2.0)

  • Show KiAuto installation information for info (v2.0.0)

  • Compare schematics for kiri (v2.2.0)

  • Print the page frame in GUI mode for pcb_print (v1.6.7)

KiKit : v1.5.1

• Mandatory for: panelize, stencil_3d, stencil_for_jig

• Optional to separate multiboard projects for general use

• Notes: - Official 1.3.0 release does not work, use my fork if 1.3.0 is the latest - You can also try the official 1.4.0 release

KiCad PCB/SCH Diff : v2.5.3

• Mandatory for: diff, kiri

LXML :

• Mandatory for: pcb_print, pcbdraw

OpenSCAD :

• Mandatory for: stencil_3d, stencil_for_jig

Xvfb :

• Mandatory for: stencil_3d, stencil_for_jig

Xvfbwrapper :

• Mandatory for: stencil_3d, stencil_for_jig

KiCost : v1.1.8

• Mandatory for kicost

• Optional to find components costs and specs for bom

Blender : v3.4.0

• Mandatory for blender_export

Interactive HTML BoM : v2.7.0

• Mandatory for ibom

KiBoM : v1.8.0

• Mandatory for kibom

markdown2 :

• Mandatory for kikit_present

QRCodeGen :

• Mandatory for qr_lib

Colorama :

• Optional to get color messages in a portable way for general use

Git :

• Optional to:

  • Compare with files in the repo for diff

  • Find commit hash and/or date for kikit_present

  • Compare with files in the repo for kiri

  • Find origin url for navigate_results

  • Find commit hash and/or date for pcb_replace

  • Find commit hash and/or date for sch_replace

  • Find commit hash and/or date for set_text_variables

ImageMagick :

• Optional to:

  • Automatically crop images for blender_export

  • Create outputs preview for navigate_results

  • Create monochrome prints and scaled PNG files for pcb_print

  • Create JPG and BMP images for pcbdraw

  • Automatically crop images for render_3d

RSVG tools :

• Optional to:

  • SVG logos for the BoM for bom

  • Create outputs preview for navigate_results

  • Create PNG icons for navigate_results

  • Create PDF, PNG, PS and EPS formats for pcb_print

  • Create PNG, JPG and BMP images for pcbdraw

Bash :

• Optional to:

  • Run external commands to create replacement text for pcb_replace

  • Run external commands to create replacement text for sch_replace

  • Run external commands to create replacement text for set_text_variables

Ghostscript :

• Optional to:

  • Create outputs preview for navigate_results

  • Create PNG, PS and EPS formats for pcb_print

numpy :

• Optional to automatically adjust SVG margin for pcbdraw

Pandoc :

• Optional to create PDF/ODF/DOCX files for report

• Note: In CI/CD environments: the kicad_auto_test docker image contains it.

RAR :

• Optional to compress in RAR format for compress

XLSXWriter : v1.1.2

• Optional to create XLSX files for bom

Installation on Ubuntu or Debian

The easiest way is to use the repo, but if you want to manually install the individual .deb files you can:

Get the Debian package from the releases section and run:

sudo apt install ./kibot*_all.deb

Important note: Sometimes the release needs another packages that aren’t part of the stable Debian distribution. In this case the packages are also included in the release page. As an example version 0.6.0 needs:

sudo apt install ./python3-mcpy_2.0.2-1_all.deb ./kibot_0.6.0-1_all.deb

Important note: The KiCad Automation Scripts packages are a mandatory dependency. The KiBoM, InteractiveHtmlBom and PcbDraw are recommended.

Installation on Arch Linux

AUR repository for kibot

yay -S kibot

Installation using pip

pip install --no-compile kibot

Note that pip has the dubious idea of compiling everything it downloads. There is no advantage in doing it and it interferes with the mcpy macros. Also note that in modern Linux systems pip was renamed to pip3, to avoid confusion with pip from Python 2.

If you are installing at system level I recommend generating the compilation caches after installing. As root just run:

kibot --help-outputs > /dev/null

Note that pip will automatically install all the needed Python dependencies. But it won’t install other interesting dependencies. In particular you should take a look at the KiCad Automation Scripts dependencies. If you have a Debian based OS I strongly recommend trying to use the .deb packages for all the tools.

If you want to install the code only for the current user add the --user option.

If you want to install the last git code from GitHub using pip use:

pip3 install --user git+https://github.com/INTI-CMNB/KiBot.git

You can also clone the repo, change to its directory and install using:

pip3 install --user -e .

In this way you can change the code and you won’t need to install again.

Notes about virtualenv

If you try to use a Python virtual environment you’ll need to find a way to make the KiCad module (pcbnew) available on it. From the linked GitHub issue , to make the pcbnew available on the virtual env, you will need to run the following command:

python -m venv --system-site-packages venv

Then python started in the venv will look at the packages in the system location, which is where KiCad puts its python code.

In addition: note that the virtual env will change the system share data paths. They will no longer point to things like /usr/share/ but to a virtual env place. So you’ll need to either define environment variables to tell KiBot where are the libs or just add symlinks from the virtual env to the system level libs.

Installation on other targets

• Install KiCad 5.1.6 or newer

• Install Python 3.5 or newer

• Install the Python Yaml and requests modules

• Run the script src/kibot