An update

I assure you, we are alive and active. JeremyW and I have gotten very busy, we've both gotten new (day) jobs, I'm getting married, and we have a lot on our plates. We've got several posts almost finalized, but we want to verify all the steps work in Jaunty. Look for new material later this month and in July.

If you have any questions or suggestions, shoot us an email at eonsproject (at) gmail.com.

Live FOSS and prosper.

Disclaimer Change

This post could very easily have been titled "Boring Legal Stuff", but it's a necessary part (a.k.a. evil) of running this blog.

We have changed our Disclaimer/Terms Of Use to more accurately cover what we do here on Tillamook Rage. Please read this document over and make sure that you still agree with everything before you continue using this blog. Just make sure you have a caffeinated beverage handy before you start reading.

You can find the updated disclaimer here.

And now, back to the good stuff...

Prerelease Review: Xubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope Alpha 3

It's been too long since we last posted. JeremyW and I both took new jobs late last summer and fall, so we've been quite busy. But with the snow on the ground I can finally get some fun work done. Installing the latest build of Xubuntu, the Alpha 3 release of Jaunty Jackalope!

For those of you unfamiliar, this is what the majestic jackalope looks like:

The version I will be discussing today has a much more sleek look to it. And Xubuntu's take doesn't leave a mess on the carpet. This is version 9.04, and with it comes XFCE 4.5.99.1 and Linux Kernel 2.6.28-3.4. The goal of this release is to improve the experience and remove transitional barriers for new users as well as decreasing boot times. By the time of the official release Jaunty will include XFCE 4.6, improve Samba integration, decrease login time, and make Xubuntu better for multimedia use. There have already been some good improvements in appearance and login speed, and they are working on logging the events occuring upon boot and login to find ways to increase the speed. It's already much faster than Vista, though that wouldn't take much. My boot time on my old laptop was 43 seconds, as opposed to 1:22 with the same setup in 8.04. Results may vary with your setup, but that was my experience.

Thankfully, OpenOffice.org 3.0.1rc2 is finally included in the repository. It isn't installed by default for the sake of making the iso fit on a CD. OpenOffice.org continues to improve, and for the average user is as good, or for some better, than Microsoft Office. My qualm had always been how bad the graphs look, but they are looking and working much better in 3.0.1, I recommend any Linux or Windows user to at least give it a try.

Firefox 3.0.5 is included and is the default browser for Jaunty. It also comes with Pidgin for chat, Thunderbird for an email client, and the Remote Desktop Viewer for all your online needs. I'm still eagerly waiting for Google to finally port Chrome to Linux, a surprising omission on their part. Firefox is still an incredible choice, and is an Ubuntu staple.

Wireless support continues to improve, and a novice user should have no problems getting online right after an install. Joe Tillamook out there should be able to install and get to work quickly and trouble free without calling their Linux-capable friends.

We're still 3 months away from the release of 9.04, but the Alpha 3 release is still looking amazing. For either a seasoned Linux veteran, or a new convert, it is arguably one of the best combinations of ease of use and speed out there.

Links:
Download Xubuntu 9.04

The 3,000 Mark

Well, we broke 3,000 visitors sometime yesterday. We would like to thank you all, and hope you're finding plenty of help. I thought we might have 1,000 hits the first year. Keep on asking good questions, and we'll keep trying to find solutions to your Linux and tech woes!

EONS: Some hard numbers

I recently did some testing of the latest stable build of EONS, 0.23.2. Here are some of those results:

System 1:
266MHz Gateway Solo 9100 Laptop
64mb PC100
4.3GB hard drive
DVD/floppy drive
No NIC or modem

System 2:
650MHz P3
128mb PC133
40GB hard drive
CD and CDRW
NIC and modem

System 3:
1GHz P3 Gateway All-In-One
384mb PC133
6GB hard drive
DVD
Wireless card

System 4:
2.8GHz P4 with hyperthreading
512mb DDR333
60GB hard drive
DVDRW and CDROM
NIC and modem

Startup times (from pressing the button to getting to the desktop):
System 1 - 2:23
System 2 - 1:02
System 3 - 0:51
System 4 - 0:41

Loading OpenOffice.org 2.2:
System 1 - 0:17
System 2 - 0:13
System 3 - 0:04
System 4 - 0:03

Loading Gmail.com on a DSL connection:
System 1 -n/a
System 2 - 0:15
System 3 - 0:10
System 4 - 0:08

Now let's compare those to the XP machine I have here.
1.67GHz Athlon XP
512mb DDR333
40GB hard drive
CDRW
NIC
Windows XP Pro SP2

Startup time - 1:13
Loading Word 2000 - 0:10
Loading Gmail.com (in Firefox for continuity) - 0:13

Now I thought that might not be entirely fair, so here's data from my personal computer, with XP Pro slapped on it:

1.6GHz Sempron 2800+
1.5Gb DDR400
2x 250GB hard drives, 8mb cache
DVD and DVDRW
NIC
Windows XP Pro SP2

Startup time - 0:40
Loading OpenOffice.org 2.2 - 0:06
Loading Gmail.com (in Firefox for continuity) - 0:09

A graphical view of the test results, shorter bars are better.

Then the same computer with EONS:
Startup time - 0:37
Loading OpenOffice.org 2.2 - 0:04
Loading Gmail.com - 0:02

So it looks like XP Pro can compete with EONS in speed, but look at the comparisons. The first XP machine, the 1.67GHz Athlon XP with 512mb DDR333 was comparable to 266MHz or the 650MHz running EONS. The 1.6GHz Sempron with 1.5Gb DDR400 was on-par with the 2.8GHz P4 with 512mb DDR333. In a pure hardware-hardware comparison it should have blown it away.

We hope to be ready for a full release of EONS in January or February, so keep coming back for more information and certainly more useful documentation.

"Tillamook on Wayne." "Tillamook on Garth."

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.

The first week

My fellow Tillamookians...
After 1 week of posting our tips and fixes I would call it a success. We hoped to help a few people, but neither of us would have guessed 109 viewers in 8 countries on 3 continents already. Thank you all. We're getting closer every day to unveiling the ultimate goal of the team, EONS. Teasers and such to come as we get closer to release date.

EONS Project Team