Greetings,<br><br> Well, I have just subscribed to the list, so I think that it is time to introduce myself.<br><br> First of all: I have not downloaded yet "Electronic Lab". I downloaded last week the "main" fedora (The live CD, but installed shortly after trying) but I will download this when I arrive home (Now writing from work, don't tell my boss ;) ). Electronics are both a job and a hobby for me. At work, mainly used 8 bit microcontrollers (PIC18 always, or nearly always) until a few months ago. And always developing on windows machines. I tried Linux at home, time ago, but the computer was shared, and, well, my brother did not like having a bootloader. And I was a poor student. Probably most of you know what I mean ;). Later, I almost forgot Linux, and went on using different windows OS. But as I said, a few months ago it changed: we needed (at work) to develop a kind of set-top box, and video & audio streaming software, and as I am the younger here, and the only one speaking english -kind of ;)- it ended assigned to me.<br>
<br> Oh, about speaking english: I am spanish. I always though that english was important, and also needed it for understanding the songs whose music I loved. That songs were from Blind Guardian, Iced Earth, and some more. Understanding the letters made me lome even more those songs, but thats another topic.<br>
<br> Well, let's return to the point. The project was assigned to me, so I started learning about embedded linux -The hardware used was a kind of beagleboard clone- and linux cross-compiling. Also it meant to leave Visual Studio in the host PC, and go back to writing C apps in a text editor (Hey, as i used to do when I was 12 or 13 years old. Well, It was Pascal those days, but...). I have almost leaved electronics as a hobby lately, but this project made me wanted to switch back to the days when I developed robots at home, and programmed for the pleasure of it, not for work. But now, using Linux, Open Source tools, and so on. <br>
<br> Let me summarize: After getting Fedora as the OS (well, dual boot Fedora 15 & Windows 7) for development, it was time for the tools. For programming the PICs, now exist Microchip MPLAB X. I have to try it yet, but it does not worry me much. As the PIC18 are well known to me, and mainly i want to try new things, I think I will use it only few times. Maybe with PIC32 I will use it more. Even if I had lost the will for doing such home projects at home, I never stopped buying develpment boards (low cost ones, only ;) ) and now have PIC32 boards for playing, PIC24, STM32 for developing with ARM, a launchpad (TI MSP430 value line) and homemade boards. So now I am looking for toolchains for those families. That´s for programming. For the hardware, I used to desing schematics and pcb's in homer or University with OrCAD or PROTEUS, and, in the work, CIRCUIT MAKER 2000 (Yup, STILL they use this... imagine how I feel....). Now i searched, and think that KiCAD is the best available option.<br>
<br> Mmm, I think that I have procrastinated enough (Time to go back to work...) but, as a last think, probably should tell something about me. As I said, I am from Spain, have studied Electronics Engineering, and have recently reached 27 years. I work a lot, earn few money, but, hey, I really love what I do. Sure, if I had more time probably would do more things at home (At this moment i reach my work at 9 hours and leave at 19...), but as I said, I love this stuff :) Another things I like are Basketball, SciFi and Fantasy books (Which mainly I read in english since a few years ago), and some TV series (SciFi mainly) but downloaded to view it when I can. I have Tv at home, but feels terribly alone hehehe.<br>
<br> Ah, and I want to apologize for the mistakes I had made (In this post, and in all that may come after ;) ). I try my best to write (and speak) correctly, but it is not always easy. Feel free to point me any mistake that makes your eyes hurt.<br>
<br>As soon as I get my computer ready, and start doing anithing be sure that I will post here both questions and results. Since then, I will be reading ;)<br><br> See you guys!<br>