Eagle Mode -
System Requirements

Copyright © 2008 Oliver Hamann. Homepage: http://eaglemode.sourceforge.net/

This document lists the minimum system requirements for running Eagle Mode. The software may even run on a weaker computer, but not so comfortable. If you cannot resist to run Eagle Mode with less RAM or swap space, your first job after starting should be to navigate to the Preferences (somewhere in the upper left area of the control view) and lessen the value for Max Megabytes Per View.

CPU: | 3.4 GHz rated (per core), 1 MB cache (per core or shared), one core or more
RAM: | 1 GB
Swap space: | 1 GB (or more RAM)
Disk space: | About 10 MB for installation, 1 GB for temporary files at run-time.
Disk type: | Quite fast and without any sleep states (notebook hard disks are not so suitable).

OS:

An up-to-date full-featured Linux is highly recommended. Other UNIX-like systems may also be suitable. Short more or less successful tests have been made with FreeBSD, BeleniX (OpenSolaris) and Cygwin.

For the question about Windows: The good news for developers is that emCore (the API) has been ported by 100% (Windows 2000 SP2 is the minimum). The bad news for users is that many plugins are not working. Especially the file manager is unusable. There are no plans to fix this.

Graphics: | An accelerated X-Server with XShm extension. 3D-acceleration is not needed (but a fast implementation of XShmPutImage). It is not recommended to use something like a 3D desktop or composite manager, because it could slow down Eagle Mode a lot.
Mouse: | With three buttons (not emulated) and with a smooth-running wheel.

Programs & Libraries:

Program/Lib | Debian Package Name | Required?
perl (Perl >=5.8) | perl | By all means
gcc (GCC >=3.3) | g++ | Yes, or read the section `Implementations` in `makers/unicc/README` in the source package, and make use of the option `compiler=name` when building.
X11R6 XShm XF86VidMode | libx11-dev libxext-dev libxxf86vm-dev | By all means, except on Windows
xterm | xterm | Highly recommended
gs (Ghostscript >=8.x) | gs | Highly recommended
JPEG library | libjpeg62-dev | Only for viewing jpeg files
PNG library | libpng12-dev | Only for viewing png files
TIFF library | libtiff4-dev | Only for viewing tiff files
xine library | libxine-dev | Only for playing audio and video files
7z | p7zip-full | Only for working with 7z files
ar | binutils | Only for working with ar files
arc | arc | Only for working with arc files
arj | arj | Only for working with arj files
bzip2 | bzip2 | Only for working with bz and bz2 files
gzip | gzip | Only for working with gz files
lha | lha | Only for working with lha files
lzop | lzop | Only for working with lzo files
tar | tar | Only for working with tar files
unrar | unrar | Only for working with rar files
zip & unzip | zip & unzip | Only for working with zip files
zoo | zoo | Only for working with zoo files
abiword | abiword | Only for viewing files of type abw, doc, odt, rtf and some more.
dvips | tetex-bin | Only for viewing dvi files
fig2dev | transfig | Only for viewing fig files
g3topbm | netpbm | Only for viewing g3 files
htmldoc | htmldoc | Only for viewing html files
pdf2ps | gs-common | Only for viewing pdf files
povray | povray | Only for viewing pov files
rpm | rpm | Only for viewing infos from rpm files
rsvg | librsvg2-bin | Only for viewing svg files
wmf2gd | libwmf-bin | Only for viewing wmf files
xwdtopnm | netpbm | Only for viewing xwd files

Do not have the wrong program to a name

Eagle Mode runs many standard programs by names like they have on Debian GNU/Linux 4.0. Your system must not have another program with one of those names, otherwise unforeseeable things could happen. For example, Eagle Mode runs "gs" when it means Ghostscript, and therefore you should not have another program named "gs" which, for example, formats the hard disk. In detail, Eagle Mode runs standard UNIX shell commands like "cp", "mv", "rm", "grep" and so on, and it runs the programs listed in the table above. Many of these are run when you just navigate around in Eagle Mode, without asking you. In addition, many further programs (not listed above) are run by triggering the file manager commands. If you are unsure about the later, please study the file manager command scripts (see emFileMan Customization for a description of the scripts).

Next Reading: Install and Start