Enlightenment Lives 339
Anonymous Coward writes "The Enlightenment Project, far from dead, is pleased to announce the DR16.7.1 release of the Enlightenment Window Manager. With tons of fixes, a massive overhaul of the internals, and several new features this release is a must try for those who haven't run E in a long time. The window manager that redefined the way a desktop can look is still going strong."
cool to see it get fixes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:cool to see it get fixes (Score:3, Interesting)
I've pretty much replaced Linux with MacOS X (and I'm not the only one - I notice another similar reply already), but I would be curious to know if it's any easier to install than the old whole day or more nightmare where it seemed like you needed every library on the planet to get the thing working.
D
Re:cool to see it get fixes (Score:2)
You could always let your package manager handle the dependencies. Let's see:
emerge -p
These are the packages that I would merge, in order:
Calculating dependencies \
!!! all ebuilds that could satisfy "x11-themes/ethemes" have been masked.
!!! possible candidates
Re:cool to see it get fixes (Score:2)
I have run enlightenment on gentoo since gentoo was pre 1.0, never had any problems. Matter of fact I just had to re-install over the weekend do to hardware fail
Read the manual. (Score:3, Informative)
Try:
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge -p enlightenment
Make sure it's not going to install some hideously unstable library in that cast.
Or edit
For example, package.keywords might have:
x11-themes/ethemes ~x86
to unmask unstable versions of ethemes on x86 systems
and
x11-wm/enlightenment ~x86
to unmask "unstable" versions of E.
Standard Gentoo "Don't use ACCEPT_KEYWORDS" post. (Score:4, Informative)
Best of both worlds (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:cool to see it get fixes (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't say I'm a big fan of CVs, but I just downloaded and extracted all the source packages from Sourceforge, and a simple
was all I needed to do on my Slackware box. No problem.
Re:cool to see it get fixes (Score:2, Interesting)
But why is it? All the X-WMs look shabby, slapdash and incomplete compared to MacOSX and even, dare I say it... WinXP.
To be fair, I thing E does better than most... more attuned to my taste than KDE or GNOME. But why must we have hundreds of hours of development hours go into something which is inferior to the two market leaders? Sure there are Lunix/BSD vs Windows/Mac arguments/fests all time time, but no Linux/BSD WM looks or functions as polished as WinXP/Mac
Re:cool to see it get fixes (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd like to see it use the latest X stuff (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:cool to see it get fixes (Score:3, Funny)
Market research by drug pushers in the US discovered that 'Ecstacy' just wasn't catchy enough for users in the American market. After many focus groups were formed, it was decided to pro-actively radicalize the Ecstacy brand. In order to dynamically push the envelope of the established paradigm, it was decided to extreme-ify the Ecstacy brand by 73%.
Thus, what Europe knows as Ecstacy or 'E' is called Xstacy or simply 'X'.
Sadly, it means that by and large, the US missed out on the subtext of T
Glad to see it's still around (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Glad to see it's still around (Score:2)
Re:Glad to see it's still around (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Glad to see it's still around (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Glad to see it's still around (Score:5, Informative)
Chances are if you have a certain preference, then there are others who also have and have made a theme for it.
I think one of E's primary motivations is to design a desktop that's not constrained in any way. Every piece is designed to be as customisable as possible - to leave the end choice about how the desktop should look to the user. Nice philosophy.
E and configurability (Score:2)
The whole idea of pixmap-themed WM decorations (and later, pixmap-themed GTK widgets) started with E.
IIRC, the initial development on themable GTK was done by Rasterman.
I ditched E because they went from "configurable WM" to "bloated desktop environment in one package". At least GNOME is modular. (They may have changed these goals...)
Sawfish probably has E beaten in raw configurability now, thanks to the fact that it is both themable AND scriptable.
But I'll probabl
Mirror...Kinda (Score:5, Informative)
If your wondering what happened to DR16.7.0, it was halted last minute by several bugs that were only reproducable by a small number of us but were major bugs none the less. You can see the changes since the initial release here.
Ports for Solaris are avalible now and the DarwinPorts port is ready. Gentoo Portage will be updated shortly.
New themes ... again and again (Score:2)
One of the things that always bugged me about E was that when you installed a new version, everything would look different. I would mostly pick one theme from the defaults that came with it, but when I'd go to update to the latest version, that choice would be gone. Yes, there's no denying that some really slick graphic design went into some of those interfaces... but when the initial "ooh
hmm... (Score:2, Funny)
sourceforge group (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:sourceforge group (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:sourceforge group (Score:4, Informative)
Re:sourceforge group (Score:2)
Not sure if he went to VA later or you're just thinking of Mandrake only. (I don't remember Mandrake's history. FYI Mandrake the E author had NO association with Mandrake the distro.)
Re:sourceforge group (Score:3, Informative)
Mandrake (http://www.mandrake.net) however was not associated with Mandrake-Linux (http://www.mandrakelinux.com).
Mandrake went on to found another company, which he then sold and is in the process of working on yet another. BTW, Mandrake's first company was bought by VALinux, it was called Enlightened something I believe... Someone care to correct me? I may have my facts slightly mixe
Re:sourceforge group (Score:4, Informative)
Re:sourceforge group (Score:5, Informative)
They didn't take posession for some time, as they resisted moving off their own hardware, but they eventually gave in.
Chris DiBona
Oh goody. (Score:2, Funny)
I always found Enlightenment to be the most enjoyable of WMs, as it felt so good when you stopped using it.
Enlightenment - the best advertisement for Ratpoison [sourceforge.net] yet!
Re:Oh goody. (Score:2, Insightful)
By the way, from the FAQ:
Concentrate more on promoting than on demoting. The real goal here is to find the juicy good stuff and let others read it. Do not promote personal agendas. Do not let your opinions factor in. Try to be impartial about this. Simply disagreeing with a comment is not a valid reason to mark it down.
Re:Oh goody. (Score:3, Funny)
Enlightenment - the WM you run when your PC's too fast!
Re:Oh goody. (Score:3, Funny)
April fools! (Score:2, Funny)
i love E (Score:5, Funny)
Version numbering (Score:2, Insightful)
EFL and the road to E17 (Score:5, Informative)
Some really neat stuff is on the way, of particular interest is the edje/evas/evoak stuff. Eventually this work will lead to an improved themeing system, for E and anything else that ties in to the EFL.
Rasterman [rasterman.com] has even given a glimpse of the power these libs will bring to the programmer with his own version of a DVD player, using the EFL, in just 17 lines of code!
so no, contrary to popular belief...E is NOT dead!
Re:EFL and the road to E17 (Score:5, Funny)
That's nothing. I'm sure a Perl hacker could do it in one line.
Re:EFL and the road to E17 (Score:5, Informative)
$_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$b=73;$c=142;
Re:EFL and the road to E17 (Score:2)
The reasons I hate "freeform" languages
Go Enlightenment! (Score:3, Funny)
E overdose! (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone noticed the title of the song being played on this screenshot [enlightenment.org]? (see the bottom right)
not dead, but comatose (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:not dead, but comatose (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't really know why you would be offended by an insensitive clod like me, if you are comfortable with the current state of enlightenment.
I still think it's great, but I doubt that they are going to release 0.17 this year and I also doubt that they'll (at the current rate of development) be any better than some newer WMs/minDesktops in regards to innovation, features and usability. I found something which works better for me but I never would criticize som
all down hill since E13 (Score:2)
Oh no! more memory wastage... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sheesh, just great, a third set of graphical toolkits to load in memory for nothing... Like we didn't have enough waste of memory with Qt/kdelibs and GTK/Gnomelibs having to be both loaded in memory most of the time (who restricts his choice to either Qt programs or GTK programs, but not both?)
Really, there are some times where the OpenSource approach to things isn't the right one. Sure choice of graphical toolkits is great, but do we look like stupids forcing users to have more memory to load several huge sets of similar libraries *just because* or what? I wish F/OSS folks decided to rally behind one and I'd happily follow, even if it wasn't my primary choice, for the sake of reducing the bloat...
Re:Oh no! more memory wastage... (Score:2, Interesting)
Add to this the fact that most people don't typically have a myriad of apps open at any given time; maybe a web browser and an email client, a few terminals with whatever project they've got going on, etc etc. Shouldn't
Re:Oh no! more memory wastage... (Score:4, Insightful)
You just need one, say GIMP in KDE, and there you have megabytes of additional, functionally identical code loaded in memory for nothing.
And you know what? even with 512M, when I edit really big images with GIMP, I need all the memory I can get. Memory isn't there for applications and libraries to waste as they please, it's supposed to be used for the data you create/manipulate.
Many years ago, it used to be that memory taken by applications and the OS was minimal compared to your data, simply because it was vital. Now it's the other way round, because developers have gotten comfy with Moore's law. The problem is, code grows faster than Moore's law...
Re:Oh no! more memory wastage... (Score:2, Flamebait)
Don't like EFL / Enlightenment? Don't use it. That is the power of open source. Your bitching about inefficient memory usage when you probably haven't written a single line of code in your life should not and does not affect the ability of others to write and use code that you don't approve of. That is the power of ope source.
If you took the time to see what the E team had been up to, you'd see that their approach is the way of the future - they are pushing the boundaries fo
Re:Oh no! more memory wastage... (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't be silly. If some program uses the EFL, even if I don't use Enlightenment, I'll have to use the EFL libs to use said program.
For example, I don't give a rat's ass about Gnome. I think Gnome, as an environment, is as ugly as it gets. But I need to use GIMP and Gnomeeting. There's no Qt/kde equivalent: what do I do? do without them? of course not, and you know it full well.
Your bitching about inefficient memory usage when you probably haven't written a s
Re:Oh no! more memory wastage... (Score:2)
Right, and I suppose you're entering this from a Sun SLC with a 200MB SCSI disk, because it does everything that someone needs to do, because you can run emacs and TeX at the same time? Or maybe a PDP/11 with legacy Unix? Come on, we're all being wasteful in the name of convenience.
Re:Oh no! more memory wastage... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is true, obviously, but doesn't add to your conclusion. He argues that code should not be _unnecessarily_ bloat, not that you shouldn't make new features for new computers. He argues for elegance and efficien
Re:Oh no! more memory wastage... (Score:2)
So yes, some people do restrict themselves to one or the other. There's nothing written with QT that I need.
Re:Oh no! more memory wastage... (Score:2)
(who restricts his choice to either Qt programs or GTK programs, but not both?)
I restrict my applications to those in the GNOME project (or, at the very least, those using GTK2). I find that I can work far better when my applications share the same look, feel, and general behavior. Far more so, that is, than when I attempt to take advantage of the slight-to-nonexistent benefits of some KDE applications over GNOME ones.
My one exemption, however, is Kile, to which there appears to be no GNOME equivalent.
Re:Oh no! more memory wastage... (Score:2)
Don't like it? Don't use it. Nobody's forcing you or anyone use it. It's simple as that. But no matter what, don't bitch it if you're not willing to help. Thanks.
Re:Oh no! more memory wastage... (Score:2, Insightful)
Join the 21st century. At $130 for 512MB of DDR2 who gives a crap about wasting memory any more?
Re:Oh no! more memory wastage... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's just the insight you'd expect from combining an arrogant linux zealot who doesn't care about product coalescence to reduce redundancy with a bloated american 'honey, let's take the SUV to the ATM tonight' approach to the world.
Beautiful to see in all its unadulterated corpulence.
-Nano.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Oh no! more memory wastage... (Score:3, Interesting)
Bah. True but only half true. Sure you can attempt to compile anything you want but lacks a real official package system. If you have any dependencies then you have to download each one and compile it too.
Sure there is fink and darwinports but both of them are very small compared to the freebsd ports or apt,
I like my mac but don't pretend
Re:Oh no! more memory wastage... (Score:3, Informative)
I know it's a concept that's hard to grasp, but actually looking at something and TRYING IT OUT before you critique it is usually a good idea.
For those interested:
http://enlightenment.org/pages/efl.html/ [enlightenment.org]
http://enlightenment.org/pages/cvsnotes.html/ [enlightenment.org]
Try out some of the cool apps people have started working on like:
Give us E17 damnit! (Score:2, Interesting)
Who knows, i might even drop XFCE for it if it runs well enough.
An E release... (Score:2, Funny)
The Problem... (Score:2)
That most of the common desktop applications are written for gnome or kde. Thus ruining the look and feel. I tried "e" a few of years ago and it looked good by current standards, but by todays standard I'm afraid the promise it holds has become dated. Maybe if the toolset were more integrated and it didnt have such a "grainy" look "e" might be a contender. IMHO its looking old fashioned.
One of the nice things "back in the day" were the animations and the window transpar
E will need KiKaZ themes! Calling all skinners! (Score:3, Interesting)
Pixelmoose if you're listening, don't forget to a)port your theme to E16.7.1 b) make a 23oz of glass xmms skin...
Never could get into it (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't get me wrong: Enlightenment is certainly a powerful and capable windowing system, and there have been some fairly original looks/themes released for it, but, to me at least (he says, carefully circumventing the Troll under the bridge) it's not a GUI that a new user coming from the Windows/Mac/KDE/Gnome world can immediately begin using. Or configuring.
(This is where all the Slashdot/Linux "elite" begin to quote my thread for their 'RTFM', and 'How could it be any simpler than xxxx?' responses)
When I first began investigating Linux all those years ago, Enlightenment themes and screenshots were all the rage. KDE and Gnome were promising, but Enlightenment was how all the coolest geeks seemed to produce such cool eye candy-based desktops. But to a Linux newbie like me, coming from an Amiga/Dos/Windows background at the time, it was totally alien. It was just too much to have to begin learning Linux, and a totally different GUI like Enlightenment, both at the same time. So Enlightenment went goodbye after way too many wasted hours trying to become productive and look good doing it.
So flash ahead several years (last year, to be exact), and a much more Linux-savy version of Me decided to give Enlightenment shot again. I hadn't kept up with it, and had meanwhile become an avid KDE fan, but I wanted to try something different, and figured that Enlightenment had to have matured by this time, to a point wherein I could grasp it easier. I mean... KDE had came so far in this time.
So I boot it up after installing the latest version, and
Now... I'm not expecting enlightenment to change their way and become KDE or Gnome or anything. But they've gotta realize that virtually any converts to their window manager will be coming from an environment such as KDE, Gnome, Windows, etc. It's a totally different methodology from that of Enlightenment. You'd think that one of the first things that you'd see on a default desktop would be a "how to get started" type of document.
Yeah, yeah... I know. RTFM. Yes, I also know that I can configure Enlightenment to look and interact like whatever I want it to, but I'd kind of expect "something" to push the new user in the right direction.
But other things were not impressive also. Fonts, in paricular, looked poor when compared to the more popular window managers around.
So flash foward to todays announcement here on Slashdot, and so I decide to take a look at Enlightenments page to see if anything's changed yet. I see this [enlightenment.org]. Come on... For crying out loud, someone get Enlightenment a PR director. If the programmers hope to grow the userbase of their window manager, they really should make it a bit more accessible. If an "intro level" of usability isn't a possibility, then how about a simple "Introduction to Enlightenment" document, or walk through? Something to offer the new user a glimpse of the power of Enlightenment. And without requiring them to hunt it down, or surf out to a website.
At least make the default font's look better. This [enlightenment.org] is a good example of both the default look of Enlightenment, and it's default fonts. Conversely, this [kde.org] is the default look of KDE. I'm not saying that KDE's superior (to me it is, but who cares), but the default look, which all of us have seen many times before, and consi
Re:Never could get into it (Score:4, Interesting)
As far as I'm concerned, E is perfect the way it is. I couldn't care less if there's never another release. I couldn't care less if no-one else ever uses it.
It's fast, stable, powerful, flexible, and pretty. No, it's not for people who don't like to tweak. I like to tweak. Gnome and KDE are for those who just want to get work done, and not mess around on their computer. I like to mess around with it, make it stand up and talk (I have a COOL computer
So really, if you don't like it, don't use it. Don't tell anyone else to use it. Tell people other things are better. I really don't mind in the slightest.
Re:Never could get into it (Score:3, Informative)
And since, as we all know, Gnome and KDE are not window managers, and I believe that E is at least Gnome-compatible, there's no reason to be speaking as if E and Gnome (or KDE for that matter) are equatable.
What's more, Gnome and KDE are both fully themable, and at least in the case of Gnome, that means that you can select pixmaps/SVG, layout and fonts that result in a very E-lik
Re:Never could get into it (Score:4, Informative)
Also, I don't know what you heard, but E16 is just a window manager, like Fluxbox or KWin or Metacity. It isn't an never was trying to be a whole desktop environment. In fact, it used to be the default window manager for Gnome before Sawfish replaced it.
In other words, if you want panels and desktop icons and stuff, then you need to run Gnome or KDE with Enlightenment as the window manager, or you need to use iDesk or something like that to provide that extra functionality. E by itself is closer to the minimalist window managers.
E17 will be more like Gnome, KDE or XFCE, but that's been years in the making and may yet be years before it's released. But E16 was never trying to be like that. What you're doing is sort of like complaining that Fluxbox doesn't do everything that KDE does. E isn't designed to do fancy stuff out of the box and be GUI configurable in all aspects. That's what KDE and Gnome are for.
Re:Never could get into it (Score:3, Interesting)
They've been quite far into awesome development progress when Mandrake and Rasterman get the inspiration to scrap the code base and do a "rewrite". I was using E CVS snapshots 3 years ago that were more advanced, more featureful, and more pretty than what's currently available.
I suspect the reason why E17 isn't catching up to where it used to be is because a lot of the developers have left. EFM was getting really, really nice, and they scrapped the c
You don't get E (Score:3, Informative)
Enlightenment belongs in the latter catogery. KDE and Gnome have a mission and so does Enlightenment but they are not the same mission. Read their site.
It being hard to use is not a problem to the people who use it. That is may be a problem to you is not their problem. This is the hardest to get about opensource. Tha
What's really cool is (Score:2)
How about make it work ...? (Score:2)
Pretty eye candy is cool, but how about making it do something useful?
Wanna hear something dumb? (Score:2, Funny)
It was released today? WTF?
Weird coincidence...ok proceed to mod this down...
from their faq... (Score:2)
Yes! Hundreds of people use DR16 daily, possibly thousands. As more and more users move to Linux and other UNIX platforms they are becoming aware of Enlightenment and making it their window manager of choice. As KDE and GNOME pick up more and more steam it becomes harder to find a powerful, yet elegant window manager for the power user who wants simplicity, flexibility and functionality. Enlightenment is often emulated, but never duplicated. Many of the users who have left E for F
cheaky E crew... (Score:3, Funny)
I never knew!
E17 is the future of Linux WMs... (Score:3, Funny)
now in portage (Score:5, Informative)
PCB
Evidence - the enlightenment file manager (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Screenshots? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Screenshots? (Score:2)
IIRC, they're redoing all the base libraries from scratch and implementing a more complete and cohesive system, which probably explains all the rabid E fans out there.
Re:Screenshots? (Score:2)
Screenshots! (Score:5, Funny)
On the Enlightenment site, under "Screenshots".
-kgj
Re:It looks cool but (Score:2, Informative)
Try it, you might like it (or hate it).
"Rasterman", a very long time ago, was an Amiga hacker.
Re:It looks cool but (Score:4, Informative)
As for reasons to use it?
Well lets see....
The themes change not only the look, but the functionality and behaviour. (See the Aqua themes)
Window Grouping
Virtual/Multiple Desktops (Yes, there is a difference)
More options than you can shake a /. troll at
Easy to use
I could go on, but I really hate telling people why they should use a product. Since you had the motivation to ask, find some motivation to try it out. Most people that have the patience to tune E to their liking will never go back to anything else. If they do, its usually to a minimalist WM like ratpoison or fluxbox (both ends of the scale I suppose). If you don't think its worth your time to enhance your productivity, then stick with what you know. Otherwise, give it a shot and be prepared to get lost in the immense selection of themes!
Re:It looks cool but (Score:4, Interesting)
So don't, I'm guessing they won't really miss you anyways and if you don't want to go through the effort (somewhat nontrivial) of trying it out then don't. Then again what do you mean by "works"?
There are a lot of people using windows, most are not going to switch to linux anytime soon because for them windows "works", of course they still have all the trouble with spyware, viruses, no multiple desktops, etc, but they say it "works". Same with IE, they figure it "works" and don't even consider activeX wonkyness or tabbed browsing (don't know what SP2 has done for this). So at what point does your window manager "work"? When it compiles? When it has no bugs? When it has nothing you can point to from your dialy usage and say "that's a bug"? Maybe when annoying UI issues are gone? I figure the only way a program is ever truly done is if it does everything you've ever wanted it to do as simply and efficiently as possible. So if you want to put in the effort to see what you might be missing from your window manager that "works" go ahead and try it out. I can tell you that I'm certainly not going to try it out today (heck probably won't even RTFA) but sometime later when I have some time to spare, maybe days, maybe weeks, maybe never, who knows, I might just give it a whirl.
Re:It looks cool but (Score:2)
Cool!
___
(Oh, and E was revolutionary when it came out.)
Re:Gnome used to run E? (Score:5, Informative)
Though in reality, since all these are just window managers, you could replace them with anything you want.
Re:Be curious to find out if the code's any cleane (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, I meant Enlightenment. (Score:2)
Re:Be curious to find out if the code's any cleane (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Be curious to find out if the code's any cleane (Score:2, Informative)
Getting the code to run on Sun's C compilier back in the DR13 days was painful but possible and totally worth it due to the speed improvements. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the speed junkies gave up on E at/near the time of DR14 due to the extensive use of gcc-isms in the hacked up configure script and the code... and that doesn't even take into account some of the... err.. interesting methods that Carsten chose to implement some of his ideas.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:2)
I personally think E has addictivity built in, I have tried everything else and each project has SOME of the things I like about E, but only E has them all.
The only bug I have found in E that consistantly irks me is the focus issue with gaim & galeon. But thats minor since a simple "click on item" fixes it.
Re:E redefined the desktop? (Score:2)
It didn't make the 486 that I first ran linux on cry like some other WMs at the time.
LK
Re:E redefined the desktop? (Score:5, Insightful)
E had fully themed widgets, both for window manager utilities and the decorations themselves. Shortly thereafter I saw this creeping into other window managers and toolkits, and then windows and macs both unofficially and officially began carrying similar flexible interface enhancements. As far as this unparalleled flexibility, E _was_ the first, and the pattern I just described is no coincidence--the influence was definitely there to a not insignificant extent.
raster's a nice and very enthusiastic guy, dedicated and ambitious. Take a look at E17 if you have a moment.
(note zealotry is not the aim here--E is not even my primary; simply I hate this damned bashing)
Re:E redefined the desktop? (Score:2)
I will take a look at the new release, as I do with all window managers. I probably will only pick apart the things I don't like, as I do with anything internet forum related.
Re:E redefined the desktop? (Score:2)
And Sees has "a few bits of chocolate". Nothing has ever come to the stunning visual excess that E had in its hayday (before Redhat made them all put on shirts and ties).
Re:My first window manager (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I remeber... (Score:2, Funny)
I remeber back in the old days when everyone used either E or Windowmaker or Afterstep.
Gawd, I feel old. The old days to me means when vtwm came out.
*sigh*
This guy really does go back (Score:4, Funny)
just to clarify, that's not the one released today (Score:3, Interesting)