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