> After all I keep hearing on this list, I am not sure that any other package
> is necessarily better. I keep hearing about Eagle, which sounds good,
> so I may have to give that one a try.

My personal favorite by far is Protel (their full-featured commercial
package, not the easy-trax freeware).  Unfortunately, it doesn't come
cheap (about $5K USD).  But to be fair, you do get a lot for that (very
capable schematic capture, excellent PCB layout with good autorouting
capability, signal integrity analysis, analog/digital simulation, and PLD
design).  It's just awesome. The price isn't really so bad when you consider
the number of tools, the quality of the tools, and the integration between
them.  Probably out of reach for most casual users, but definitely worthy of
consideration if you make your living designing circuits.  Also, expect to
spend about $1K per year on upgrades if you want to keep it up to date.
Not cheap at all.  But very good.

My biggest complaint about it is that it isn't available for Linux.  That
makes Eagle attractive.  Eagle is quite respectable when compared
against other products of similar price.  But it pales by comparison to
Protel's capabilities.  Given the price difference, I can't fault it for that, b
ut it
just isn't in the same league.

To be fair, I have seen comments from people who strongly dislike Protel's
tools.  So when choosing a package the best advice is to get the demos
and judge for yourself.  Personal taste and work style can have a big effect
on what tool will work best for you.  If someone says a particular package
sucks or that it's unintuitive, that may only mean that it doesn't fit the way
they thing.  But it doesn't necessarily mean it won't fit the way you think.
YMMV.


---
                                        Peace,
                                        William Kitchen
                                        bill@iglobal.net

The future is ours to create.