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*Please see also the Info
section of this website*
The eOne is an integrated, all-in-one style computer from eMachines,
Inc. It first debuted in 1999 as an aqua-blue and white machine with a
built in 15" monitor, CD-ROM and floppy drives, stereo speaker
set, 64mb of RAM, and 6.4GB hard drive. Additionally, it has video and
audio in (for gaming or watching TV through a VCR), two PCMCIA slots
(two Type II or one Type III), two USB, parallel port, two serial,
10baseT Ethernet with HomePNA capability. All eOne's come with a RAGE
XL video chipset with 8mb of video ram.
All eOne's use the Intel Celeron CPU, earlier machines came with a
433mhz chip, later models feature a 466mhz CPU or a 500mhz CPU. All
500mhz models also have an upgraded hard drive with an 8.4GB capacity.
For the same reasons as why you would want an Apple iMac - ease of
use, simplicity, low cost, cool design, and a compact layout. It makes
an idea dorm or home office machine, with more than enough horsepower
to do most productivity applications and multimedia design. The memory
and screen size are its greatest inherent limiting factor for doing
more serious work, but adding memory and hard drive space are possible
(but voids factory warranty).
In some ways, the eOne is better than an iMac, as it comes with a
built in floppy drive, and even in its most basic configuration, has
parallel, game and standard serial ports (as well as USB) for
maintaining compatibility with legacy peripherals. It also comes
standard with a Video-In feature which allows for simple editing and
multimedia effects, well before the Apple iMac DV editions were
available. Depending on your point of view, the breadth of
applications (whether for Windows or Linux) with the eOne is probably
better.
If you need a super expandable machine, there are plenty of options
besides the eOne, and you're probably better off buying one of those.
If you like the size and feature-set (not to mention the price after
the rebate scheme) of the basic eOne, it's a nice machine. For those
of us who are tired of spending money on upgrades year after year and
need a simple, quiet workhorse, the eOne makes for a good compromise.
3. Is the eOne expandable?
Officially, the factory manual states that eOne is only meant to be
expandable through the PCMCIA ports, parallel port, or through the
serial port. You can add a variety of peripherals this way, including
SCSI controllers, modems, network cards, memory, scanners, CD-burners
- everything a normal PC could add in this manner, or more
specifically, everything a normal laptop could add through these
ports.
Unofficially, there are other options, please see below in section 5.
Fortunately, the makers of the eOne used relatively standard
components when building the core pieces of the machine, so internal
expansion of hard drives and memory is not out of the question.
NOTE: The author and
maintainers of this FAQ neither condone nor recommend the opening of
your eOne for any purpose. We will not be held liable for any damage
to you, your property or anything or one else as a direct result of
your upgrade. If you fry it somehow or shock yourself to death, we
told you so.
It is possible to update the hard drive with a larger model (an eOne
with 25GB drive comes to mind) and upgrade the memory through the
onboard memory slot. There are no PCI slots or other internal
expansion, and in most likelihood, you won't need it because of the
eOne's built in features.
~ See section 5 for more
information on upgrading the eOne ~
4. It looks a lot like an Apple iMac. Is it
MacOS Compatible?
In a word, no. Despite the visual similarities, the eOne is NOT a
MacOS compatible machine, and it does not run MacOS applications of
any kind. If you want to run MacOS applications on the eOne, you will
need to install a product like vMac or Gemulator SoftMac 2000 which
runs under Windows or Linux. You will need to supply your own Mac ROM
file (or Gemulator card), and MacOS (to MacOS8.1). The emulated Mac is
only a faux-Motorola 68040 based machine, and while quite capable, not
cutting edge. It does, however freak out your Mac friends when they
see you running OS8 full screen on an Intel-based, eOne.
4a. What would the emulated MacOS
performance be like on an eOne?
Since this is way off topic, suffice to say it will be comparable to
any other Celeron 433, 466 or 500mhz machine running Win98 or Linux
and the vMac or SoftMac 2000 product. Your mileage may vary depending
on trip conditions and snow tires however.
4b. But my friend with an iMac has a
[game, tool, app] which I'd really like to use.
If it works under a 68040-based "classic" Mac, then it might
run. Otherwise, buy a Mac.
5. How do I upgrade the eOne?
The most obvious, least painful way of upgrading the eOne is through
the PCMCIA ports, serial ports and parallel ports. For example, it's
quite easy to buy a PCMCIA SCSI controller or a PCMCIA 100mbit network
card. Memory is also possible to add through the PCMCIA port, but it
tends to be poor value when compared to other alternatives.
It's also quite easy to attach an external CD-ROM burner or scanner
through the eOne's parallel port or USB ports. Ditto for Zip drives or
anything else parallel or USB based for that matter. Most users have
few problems in this case.
5a. How do I upgrade the eOne's hard
drive?
In a nutshell, should you decide to violate your factory warranty and
replace the hard drive, you will need to purchase a standard 3.5"
IDE UltraDMA drive of your favorite size, open the eOne (as described
below), and swap out the old drive for the new one. It requires
nothing more than a simple change out replacement of the old internal
drive with a new, larger model. Upon powering up the eOne again, make
sure that the BIOS recognizes the drive, the reconfiguration is saved,
and from there, all you have to do is the usual format and install of
your favorite operating system.
5b. How do I upgrade the eOne's memory?
There is an empty, onboard memory slot consisting of a socket for a
144 pin, 3.3v SODIMM. The quick, painful answer is no, a normal PC100
168 pin DIMM memory will not work. However, SODIMMS are becoming
increasingly common, with their widespread use in iMacs and notebooks,
so procuring a 128mb module really is not a headache.
Here is the description on adding RAM, verbatim from a user who has
done it:
"In order to add RAM you have to flip the eOne over and
remove all the screws from the bottom of the machine. I believe there
are two towards the front and two towards the back. Also you have to
flip up the stand, and there is a screw in each hole that the stand
rests in. Just unscrew these, don't take them out. "Once all the
screws are removed, pull lightly on the base and the plate should
remove, but be careful since there are 2 cables on left side when
flipped upside down connected to the base. Once the bottom plate is
off, disconnect all the cables connecting to the metal box except for
the power cable. For the power cable, remove the metal half cylinder
around the cord. Remove the single screw at the back of the metal box.
Now gently pull the metal box backward and lift, but be careful that
the power cable is not getting caught on anything or tearing.
"Now flip the box upside down and there is your motherboard with
one available RAM slot. Install the memory by pushing firmly. Once you
are done, make sure to connect every cable back where it goes
including the cables attached to the base that you pulled off. The
eOne takes a 144 Pin 3.3V PC100 SODIMM. I ordered mine from www.atman-usa.com
since they had the best prices. I would only suggest adding Peripheral
Enhancements memory, which they do sell."
5c. How do I upgrade the eOne's Ethernet
card?
For some users, the eOne's 10mbit/PNA, Intel based Ethernet card is
not fast enough, or is of the wrong type (Ethernet instead of ATM,
Token Ring, etc.). Unfortunately, due to the fact that the eOne lacks
internal PCI expansion, you cannot simply add a PCI based card.
Instead, the eOne's PCMCIA slots can be used to add the adapter of
your choice. Now that PCMCIA cards are pretty much universal, this
solution works out pretty well, though PCMCIA cards do command a
higher premium over their similarly performing PCI cousins.
Check with the documentation of the PCMCIA card and of the operating
system you are using for more information on when is appropriate and
when is not to insert the PCMCIA cards. Although PCMCIA cards are
supposed to all be hot pluggable (and electrically they are),
occasionally OS support for these cards is somewhat buggy and may
require a reboot to properly recognize and install. Your mileage may
vary, but the eOne from a hardware perspective (and usually a Win98
perspective) supports these cards just fine.
6. I've hosed up my eOne and now my BIOS
doesn't recognize anything.
This is common to most PC's and can occur when you are changing IRQ
settings or playing with the autorecognize features of modern hardware
and the BIOS becomes confused as to what is installed in the machine
and what's not.
Quite simply, power down your eOne, wait 10 seconds, power up the
machine and press <Del> when the eMachines logo comes up. This
will put you in the BIOS configuration screen and allow to select an
option called "Restore Defaults". Select this option, then
save to the BIOS, and your factory defaults should be restored without
a problem.
7. I've hosed up my eOne and now the CD-ROM doesn't open.
I take the answer verbatim from a user who had this very thing
happen, and the subsequent eMachines technical support response:
"Anyway, an uninstall of lnx4win leaves win98 unable to
recognize the CD-ROM. The CD-ROM door won't even open. I called tech
support about this, here's what I had to do: Unplug the eOne from the
wall. That's right, unplug it for about 15 seconds, then plug it back
in, then the CD-ROM door will open again."
He also suggested that occasionally after particularly nasty
hacking sessions, the CD-ROM may refuse to open, you may also have to
unplug the machine AND restore the BIOS defaults to get the machine to
rerecognize the CD-ROM drive as a device (see Question 7). Naturally,
if you've made any modification to the BIOS (after adding a hard
drive, memory, etc.) they will be lost and you will need to enter them
again.
8. How do I install Windows 98? Or, I'm having problems
booting. How do I re-install the Master Boot Record (MBR)?
The eOne owners guide has very clear instructions on how to
re-install the eOne with Win98. The eOne supports a bootable CD-ROM,
and there is very little more involved than booting up the Win98
CD-ROM, deleting any hard disk partitions which may be undesired,
formatting the disk, and reinstalling Win98.
The eOne uses a specialized video driver that comes pre-installed
on the eOne Win98 CD-ROM. If you reinstall the OS using just a regular
Win98 CD-ROM, it probably will not contain the driver and the machine
may or may not work with the default driver. At best, it will probably
be limited to basic 256 color functionality.
Also, the eOne OS disk contains copies of all drivers and software
that comes with the eOne from the factory. This includes such niceties
as the ATI Video-In display software, various ISP freebie promotions,
and Microsoft Works, a relatively useless productivity package that
somehow made it out of the late 1980's and Windows 2.0 without a
change.
If you are having issues with Windows booting (and I quote):
"try booting the system from a win98 boot disk with
fdisk.exe copied to it. Run fdisk /mbr from the c:\ prompt, then fdisk
again and delete the primary dos partition, create a new one, then
start up the system from the eMachines restore CD-ROM and do a
complete re-install. Then of course you'll want to do the windows
update thing to get everything up to date in win98."
Please note that this also reinstalls Win98, the OS that came
loaded on the eOne from the factory. It also would reinstall the
Master Boot Record, possibly overwriting LILO or any other tool you'd
use to manage your multiple partitions on the eOne. As a result, this
could render any other OS's unbootable on your eOne, even though they
may actually exist on the other partition(s).
9. How do I install Linux?
*Please see also the Linux
section of this website*
Linux is, surprisingly enough, one of the main reasons why many
people buy the eOne, after the cool design and compact layout.
Combined in one package, the machine has the basis for a very
attractive, portable and reasonably powerful Linux workstation.
This would be great, if it weren't for issues that are currently
being resolved with Linux and the eOne's video system. In a nutshell,
when you go to install Linux (of various flavors), the installation
program seems to run fine from a video perspective, and most core
pieces of the OS install without a relative hitch. In fact, everything
but one piece goes well.
However, once the X-Window configuration begins to take place,
either the automated probe can't determine which video card settings
to use, or it comes up with incorrect settings that cause the video
card to either display nothing but scrolling, colored gibberish, black
screens which cause the eOne's power button to blink (indicating loss
of monitor sync), or nothing at all.
Note that the core OS works just fine from the command line, just
the X-window server subsystem seems to have issues. If all you plan to
do is run everything from a shell, Linux works well. Otherwise, read
on.
Extensive efforts have been made to try and manually configure the
X-server to use only a narrow band of display variables, mostly to no
avail. A couple of people have reported having some success with the
VGA-16 Xserver, but further examination of video timing settings
causes the server to either lock or become unresponsive.
Emails have been flying back and forth for some time on this issue.
If you'd like to join the mailing list for eOneians (join the
brethren!) or have a solution to the dilemma, please send an email to:
Linux-eOne-subscribe@onelist.com,
or to message the owner, send an email to: Linux-eOne-owner@onelist.com.
At the present, there are no results yet from emails sent to KDS
(the makers of the monitor who referred us to their site in Canada),
eMachines, the Miscellaneous Linux newsgroups or the Xfree86 group.
Hopefully someone will be able to point out the error of our ways and
we'll be rolling.
Several users have also been experimenting with Mandrake's lnx4win,
a Mandrake program that configures and installs a set of large Linux
files from within a Windows C:\ drive. Ironically, these files are
actually EXT2FS, and seem to work pretty well without destroying the
rest of your Windows partitions; a particularly handy thing if you are
not very sure about disk partitioning or simply want to run Linux
without the hassle of moving partitions around with something like
resize or Partition Magic. Lnx4win gives you a multi-optioned boot
window, and its interface allows you to gently boot into Linux from
Windows. As an aside (and cheap plug for Mandrake...Go Mandrake!), a
very cool feature of Mandrake is its supermount facility to automount
anything you put in, along with lnx4win's standard feature of a
/mnt/dos which seamlessly gives access to your dos files.
10. Does the BeOS run on the eOne?
As of version 4.5, BeOS does not run on the eOne, almost with the
same results as Linux.
After starting the machine with the BeOS boot floppy or CD-ROM, the
BeOS install program seems to recognize all hardware in the eOne,
starts to install the OS, and then mid-way through the installation
process when it comes to work with the video settings, determines that
it can't utilize the eOne's display hardware and then defaults into a
black and white, low-res video mode. After this point, BeOS continues
to install, finishes installation and boots itself quite happily into
the standard VGA low-res black and white video mode, where in theory,
you are supposed to be able to patch or hack it with an appropriate
driver.
Unfortunately, I have neither experimented or played around with
any of the included BeOS video drivers (of which there are only a few)
in order to see if one of them can be made to work with the eOne.
There is hope, however. In version 5 of the BeOS, Be is releasing a
version that will install and boot from within Windows, on a virtual
partition, with little or no system performance degradation. It is
unclear if BeOS will use the existing Windows 98 drivers to display
everything or use its own drivers.
According to Be, this version will be free and downloadable on or
before 31-March, 2000. When it is available, this FAQ will be updated
with the results. Please see the following web address for more
information: www.be.com
11. Does Sun Solaris x86 run on the eOne?
As of this writing, the only information that has been submitted to
the FAQ were experiences trying to install Solaris v2.6 x86. It did
not install, due to the fact that it would not recognize the existence
of the eOne's CD-ROM drive, and subsequently couldn't find a boot
device to launch the CD based portion of its installation routine.
This piece is well before the video segment of the installation
routine.
If anyone has tested Solaris 7 or Solaris 8 (Early Access edition
or regular release), please forward me the results and I will be more
than happy to include them in this FAQ.
At the risk of starting a Solaris x86 versus Linux flame war, the
eOne would also make a fine Solaris box. It could follow the tradition
of a Sun Microsystems Voyager machine (an all-in-one, LCD screen based
design sold during the time of the SPARCstation 4 and 5 series) that
would be compact, portable, and enterprise class
12. Does Windows NT (2000, Terminal
Server, etc.) run on the eOne?
At the present time, no-one has verified the functionality of the
eOne with Windows NT (2000, Terminal Server, yak-blah) with the eOne.
Although there is little reason why NT should not run (other than
perhaps the before mentioned video issues), no-one on the eOne mailing
list has admitted to actually attempting the install of NT.
From the eMachines web site (www.e4me.com)
they mention that eTowers from a hardware perspective are capable of
running Windows NT but you are on your own for technical support and
the drivers are "at your own risk" type of ventures. I would
suspect that the eOne is exactly same circumstance, though they don't
mention it by name.
If you do try to install Windows NT, I would suggest installing
more memory (see section 5) in the eOne in order to boost what some
have described as "sluggish" performance in low memory cases
with NT.
It is also suggested that installation be launched from within
Win98 in order to "capture" as many of the existing drivers
as possible making for an easier installation, as at the time of the
writing of this FAQ, it cannot verified the independent existence of
NT drivers for the eOne. Video is probably the most important in this
aspect.
13. FAQ Caveats, Contributors, Contact Information
*Please see also the About
section of this website*
This FAQ is a simple collation of the best available information at
the time of its writing. As with any hardware hacking, we cannot be
responsible for the destruction of property, personal injury or
liability for any issues that arise as a result of the misuse of this
information. Quite simply, if you shock yourself to death, we warned
you. If you don't feel comfortable working around electronic
equipment, please either do not attempt modifications or please seek
the advice of trained personnel.
If anyone would like to be added to the eOne mailing list, please
email: Linux-eOne-subscribe@onelist.com
to join.
If anyone would like to suggest changes, add information or
otherwise contribute to the eOne FAQ, please email me, Andy Drake (abdrake@gcfn.org).
I would like to thank all the people who are on the original eOne
mailing list for sending back information, contributing greatly to
this FAQ and for your efforts at getting Linux and everything else
running on the eOne as a whole. I have kept most of your names out of
the FAQ on purpose for privacy, but feel free to email me if you'd
like otherwise and I'll be more than happy to include proper credits.
For those whom I have freely quoted email, please tell me if you'd
like to be mentioned by email address and I'll definitely put you in.
As always, this is a work of love, and this FAQ by all means is not
exclusively the results of my efforts.
Here are a list of informative web sites (in mostly alphabetical
order):
Be, Inc. (BeOS): www.be.com , free.be.com
eMachines, Inc. (eOne, eTowers): www.e4me.com
KDS, Inc. (Monitors, internal eOne tube): www.kdscanada.ca/linux.htm
Sun Microsystems, Inc.: www.sun.com
Xfree86 (X-Window System): www.xfree86.org
Miscellaneous Linux information (mostly video stuff): www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/XFree86-HOWTO.html
www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/XFree86-Video-Timings-HOWTO.html
www3.cybercities.com/v/vii/programs/linux/read-edid/index.html
All trademarks are of their respective owners. The originators and
maintainers of this FAQ, the eOneian group or any other parties make
no claim to or use these trademarks in any way other than reference
for technical documentation purposes only.
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