Software Baseline

We recommend the use of Linux as operating system. Most of use use the Manjaro Xfce distribution. Install it on your machine or in a virtual machine, like VirtualBox.

Listed below is the software that we recommend as baseline for developments. You are free to use other tools for your development for LibreCube, as long as is available as FOSS (Free and Open Source Software).

You may find a suitable alternative to closed-source software at https://alternativeto.net/.

Office Works

LibreOffice: For working on documents, presentations and spreadsheets.

DBeaver: An SQL client and a database administration tool.

Gaphor: For the creation of UML and SysML diagrams.

Blender: A professional 3D computer graphics software toolset used for creating animated films, visual effects, art, 3D printed models, interactive 3D applications and video games.

Mechanical Development

FreeCAD: FreeCAD is a general-purpose parametric 3D CAD modeler and a building information modeling software with finite-element-method support. FreeCAD is aimed directly at mechanical engineering product design.

Electrical Development

KiCad: KiCad is a software suite for electronic design automation (EDA). It facilitates the design of schematics for electronic circuits and their conversion to PCB designs. It features an integrated environment for schematic capture and PCB layout design. Tools exist within the package to create a bill of materials, artwork, Gerber files, and 3D views of the PCB and its components.

Software Development

Zed: Our IDE (integrated development environment) of choice for all kinds of software projects. Also, install the Codebook Spell Checker extension to reduce typos in comments etc.

Code OSS: This is an alternative to Zed IDE. Code OSS is the open source core of Visual Studio Code without the Microsoft-specific customizations. Install the following extensions: Python, and Ruff.

Embedded Software Development

PlatformIO: This requires Visual Studio Code (install from AUR) as baseline and extends it with toolchain support for many microcontrollers and development boards. You may need to install the Arduino framework (sudo snap install arduino) to get the st-link driver running.