The Word of Chaos

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You can download the OS free from the eyeOS website at http://www.eyeos.org. If you don’t want to download the OS to set it up yourself or don’t have a capable web server, you can try out the eyeOS demo or sign up for the eyeOS Service at http://www.eyeos.info. Both services are free from the eyeOS organization. I’ve tried both the eyeOS service and the demo. The service seems to go much faster than the demo and allows you to keep your files privately or share them with the eyeOS users on that server. I didn’t look into the service extensively, so I recommend you try it if you don’t have a PHP-enabled web server at your disposal.

For testing purposes, I attempted to install eyeOS on a FreeBSD 6.2 web server using Apache 2.2.3 and PHP5.2.3. FreeBSD reports that the processer is running at approximately 880 MHZ and has about 192 MB of ram available to it. I’ve read reports of eyeOS running on much slower hardware than this.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get eyeOS running on my FreeBSD server. When running the install script, I would the script would stop with no errors (even with setting PHP error reporting as verbose as I could.) I immediately ran off to the eyeOS forums to see what the deal was. As it turns out, I registered on the forums when one of the devs was working on improving the installation process. I sat through the day trying new install packages that the dev would post. After no success with installing on FreeBSD, I successfully installed eyeOS on my Gentoo production box.

I would like to give props to the eyeOS team, specifically forum user and eyeOS developer afiestas, for working hard on improving the installer for eyeOS. With their obvious dedication to the project, I don’t expect these installation problems to linger.

The install process, when it works, is very basic. The most important item to set in the installation is the root password. After setting this password, it will prompt you to log in.

The interface is nicely done with cool CSS tricks such as transparency and fading. Clicking menus is nice and responsive, even when your eyeOS server isn’t on your local network. Windows can also be arranged as you please for easy viewing. To move personal files to and from the application, you can upload and download files though the file browser. One cool feature I found was the ability to download folders as a zip file. I felt right at home with the user interface.

The applications that come with eyeOS are somewhat disappointing. These programs are mostly simple office and organization applications. You can keep your contact book, appointments, do some basic word processing, play a game of chess, and a few other simple tasks. Keeping in mind that this is still a young project, I think these applications say a lot about what this team will be able to accomplish with a little more time. However, as a reviewer of this new technology, I wanted to try a few other applications that might be a little less ’stable’.

An eyeOS application site, eyeapps.org, is available to download new games and applications. The list of applications is nice; Among the applications available is an open-source Lemmings-clone, a Java-based First Person Shooter, an image editor, and an html editor. Pretty cool stuff, huh? I was very excited about the Lemmings-clone when I saw it. I downloaded the program and ran into a bit of a problem. Unfortunately, I couldn’t run my Lemmings-clone because I couldn’t find a method to install the program. “What on Earth am I missing here? I’m not really this stupid, am I?” I thought to myself. Once again, I ran off to the eyeOS forums to find the solution to my problem.

The answer I found to this question wasn’t the answer I expected to get. Apparently, there is no way to install applications in eyeOS right now. No, I’m not making this up. According to articles on their forums, the application manager that is used to install programs has been removed because of complications and will be added in the next version, which I assume means version 1.1, but don’t quote me on that. I had been hoping for a hack or some other way to install programs, but, since eyeOS implements it’s own file system, I can understand where it might be difficult to find a safe hack.

[UPDATE:  It seems that a manual method of application installation has appeared on eyeOS’s forums. I’ve not tried this method yet, so I can’t verify if it works or not. ]

eyeOS 1.0 “Dahlia” is enough to make me curious about where this project will go. I’m interested in application development for this platform. According to their website, application development using eyeOS is made easy using the eyeOS toolkit. I can’t find this toolkit when searching their website, so I’m guessing that it’s not available yet. I’ll be sure to post when eyeOS 1.1 or when the toolkit is made available. Until then, I urge you to try eyeOS out.