Announcing: EONS 0.1

The EONS project team is finally ready to announce their project, and the main purpose of this blog; EONS. EONS stands for (eCycling Omniuser Nondiscriminatory System) and is a Linux OS serving as a free alternative to Windows with all the features the average user would need and in a very lightweight version. It is designed to work on all machines, regardless of speed and has mostly been tested on sub-500 MHz machines with 64mb RAM and a 2.1 GB hard drive. We are currently only using version 0.1 in-house and are preparing install CDs for the general public once we feel it is bug-free. The main features are:

• Lightweight
• Integrated Windows program support through Wine
• Automatic unobtrusive updates
• OpenOffice.org 2.2
• Firefox and Thunderbird
• Educational and scientific software is bundled
• Looks like Windows to help ease transition for non-Linux natives

Now, we want your feedback on what features you want to see most. We have a new poll on the right side of the screen, but if there are features or questions we haven't addressed send us an email: eonsproject (at) gmail.com.

Here are some screen shots to tantalize:

EONS Tux

The desktop of EONS 0.1

EONS with OpenOffice.org Writer and KStars planetarium program.

Dynamic MMap error while updating

Well, I was doing some updating while testing some unstable Debian packages, and I figure some other people out there might run into this too if they're doing big updates. So here it goes.

This procedure was developed using the Xubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) Alternate Install CD running XFCE. As always, be careful when editing your system configuration files, or following any procedures from any site, as you can do harm to your system if a mistake is made. Always make backups of the configuration files that you change, or you might just find yourself with a broken system that's a pain to fix.

I was at the Terminal and typed sudo apt-get install PROGRAM, only to find myself with the error stating:

Reading package lists... Error!
E: Dynamic MMap ran out of room
E: Error occurred while processing shogun-python-modular (NewVersion1)
E: Problem with MergeList
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

The fix isn't too bad. You will edit one of two files, use whichever you have. You will edit either /etc/apt/apt.conf or /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/70debconf using sudo mousepad (or your text editor of choice) at the terminal. Backup the file now, just in case something goes wrong. Now, to the end of that file add the line APT::Cache-Limit "#"; where # is any value of blocks as long as it is less than the total amount available on the disk. This can be checked using the df command at the terminal. Save the edited file after double checking for any typos. Now when I run sudo apt-get install PROGRAM I get through the install without a hitch.

Happy trails Tillamook cowboys.