Linux [29] was chosen as the operating
system/platform upon which the circuit editor would be developed.
Linux is a freely distributable clone of the
UNIX
operating system which has been ported to a
variety of hardware architectures. The operating system offers
stability, open development, source code availability and a variety of
suitable software development tools. Also, it runs on relatively cheap
hardware. Other excellent UNIX-like operating systems, such
as FreeBSD and NetBSD, possess similar
qualifications and were also potential candidates, but it was decided
to go with Linux due to familiarity with this system and
accompanying distributions.
As a result of this decision, it was decided that the circuit editor GUI
should run on the windowing system most prevalent on the UNIX
platform, namely, the X Window System [21]. As
luck would have it, XFree86 is a freely available and robust
port of the X Window System to PC based UNIX systems.
Despite the decision to use UNIX and X for
development, the chosen implementation language should be portable,
thereby allowing the GUI to be used with other operating systems should
the need arise.