Enlightenment DR17 On the Linux Desktop

StephenJoiner writes "There's a new review on Mad Penguin of the latest VectorLinux release, which includes the in-development Enlightenment DR17 desktop. As far as I know, this is the first time DR17 has appeared on a production desktop... even as a "technology preview". All I have to say is Enlightenment on VectorLinux is absolutely off the scale." Enlightenment was in Slashdot news earlier for both the involvement with Elive and their use of Epeg bits to deal with thumbnailing.

Ok..

[Karamchand]

- but where's the review now? Did you wonder this too? Well, here it is! VectorLinux 5.1 Deluxe Review [madpenguin.org]

Re:Ok..

[terrymr]

So now we're not even linking to TFA ... i guess that's one more reason people won't read it.

I was wondering abou that.

[keilinw]

I was wondering what happened to Enlightenment!

LiveCD

[amembleton]

Is there a live cd distribution that contains Enlightenment? I can't be bothered with installing a distro just to try it out.

Re:LiveCD

[Anonymous Coward]

If you'd followed the Elive link in the article summary, you would have found a Debian-based LiveCD with Enlightenment.

Re:LiveCD

[oringo]

Yes indeed. It's called elive. Get it at http://livecd.debianitas.net/index.html [debianitas.net]
There's a torrent for it also: http://torrents.osdir.com/index.php?view=Elive%20B eta%200.1 [osdir.com]

It's a trap!

[MrHanky]

Read the name backwards: It's evile. EVIL-E! Get it? It will suck out your soul and install a Microsoft OS. Better stick to KDE until enlightenment has a distribution approved by the Pope.

Re:LiveCD

[Dolda2000]

I can't be bothered with installing a distro just to try it out.

You know, I get this strange notion that it might be possible to install on your current distro. ;)

Ubuntu + E17

[trevordactyl]

There was recently a how-to posted on getting Ubuntu and E16-E17 paired up on ubuntu forums if anyone is interested and hasn't seen it:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=54476 [ubuntuforums.org]

Re:Ubuntu + E17

[RiotXIX]

Also, www.get-e.org is the best site i've come across for installing e17 (would have been lost without it).

Re:Ubuntu + E17

[MynockGuano]

I agree; I stumbled upon that site yesterday--just AFTER I had finished installing Enlightenment CVS for the first time in about 6 months to see where they're at.

And where are they? It's there, it's usable, and I'm loving it. Obviously, it is also still in-development, but aside from the total lack of configurability by GUI or textfile--nearly everything must be configured via obscure, undocumented enlightenment_remote commands (thank goodness for the included zsh completion script!)--once you've managed to configure it, it's completely usable. I was extremely impressed, and will be back to using Enlightenment from here on out.

For those of you who prefer it, another thing I found right after installing was this great page [nus.edu.sg], which has binaries and source rpms of CVS snapshots, and includes apt and yum repositories! Very nice! I wrote a script to install the whole she-bang from CVS a long time ago, but this would be an even easier way to keep tabs on the development progress, if you use a distro that supports rpm.

----

Personal recommendations:

I like the engage launcher/tray better than the default ibar. You can enable it as a module with these commands:

$ enlightenment_remote -module-unload ibar (not essential, but having both is rather redundant)
$ enlightenment_remote -module-load engage
$ enlightenment_remote -module-enable engage

I also edited the data/themes/module/images/bg_[hv].png files in the engage source before compiling to be completely transparent (instead of 65% opaque) to remove the (in my opinion) ugly background rectangle on my engage bar. I think get-e.org had another solution for this which involved editing the module.ecj file, instead, which probably would have been easier had I known to do it before I did the install. >8)

Re:Ubuntu + E17

[the_greywolf]

Personal recommendations:

I like the engage launcher/tray better than the default ibar. You can enable it as a module with these commands:

$ enlightenment_remote -module-unload ibar (not essential, but having both is rather redundant)
$ enlightenment_remote -module-load engage
$ enlightenment_remote -module-enable engage

I also edited the data/themes/module/images/bg_[hv].png files in the engage source before compiling to be completely transparent (instead of 65% opaque) to remove the (in my opinion) ugly background rectangle on my engage bar. I think get-e.org had another solution for this which involved editing the module.ecj file, instead, which probably would have been easier had I known to do it before I did the install. >8)

i take a bit of a different tact. i keep both the ibar and engage around. i settled on this for my normal configuration:

enlightenment_remote -module-unload temperature
enlightenment_remote -module-unload cpufreq
enlightenment_remote -module-unload battery
enlightenment_remote -module-load engage
enlightenment_remote -module-enable engage
enlightenment_remote -module-load monitor
enlightenment_remote -module-enable monitor

enlightenment_remote -desks-set 4 2

enlightenment_remote -desktop-name-add 0 0 0 0 "Communications"
enlightenment_remote -desktop-name-add 0 0 1 0 "Browsing"
enlightenment_remote -desktop-name-add 0 0 2 0 "t3h 3mail"
enlightenment_remote -desktop-name-add 0 0 3 0 "Downloads"
enlightenment_remote -desktop-name-add 0 0 0 1 "Programming"
enlightenment_remote -desktop-name-add 0 0 1 1 "Testing"
enlightenment_remote -desktop-name-add 0 0 2 1 "Hacking"
enlightenment_remote -desktop-name-add 0 0 3 1 "Images"

and i have a unique background image on each desktop, including Firefoxy and iCandy from ToyboxArts.

Re:Ubuntu + E17

[poofyhairguy82]

What does E17 do that XFCE, or more important to me, KDE, doesn't do?

Looks prettier. And can run faster (I know it sounds like I'm lying, but I'm not). Its amazing. Its just kinda harder to use.

Re:Ubuntu + E17

[i_should_be_working]

This thread [ubuntuforums.org] is a bit more straightforward as it's focused only on installing e17.

Re:Ubuntu + E17

[anagama]

Wow - thank you for the link. Enlightenment never entered my consiousness before today. Needless to say ... I'm not merely impressed, I'm amazed. The eye candy it puts out on the old pIII laptop I decided to test it on is amazing -- and that's with just 256mbs of ram. Now, I truly like my KDE and Gnome desktops (KDE a bit more though I do like Gnome too), but they aren't the kind of thing I can show someone and watch their eyes fall out in jealousy. They're like introducing a cute girlfriend to your bu

Re:Vapourware

[picklepuss]

Actually if you look on Rasterman.com, he does a few comparisons of different stock window managers using a script that he wrote, and E-17 kills.

http://www.rasterman.com/index.php?page=News Scroll down to the post "E17 is being Optimized"

I'm particularly fond of the way the pager behaves. I like being able to drag and drop iconified windows between desktops. Although this works in Gnome, it will place the window in the new desktop at the same coordinates it was in the old one. With the pager in E, you can actually *place* the window within the pager...

Re:Vapourware

[picklepuss]

Look, I'm not trying to get into a pissing match over which WM is better or anything. The parent subject indicated that E17 was vapourware, and you and I both know that's not true. He also wanted to know what was significant about it besides the eye-candy. Obviously high performance on a small footprint is significant - particularly if you take into account that it actually looks half decent.

Re:Vapourware

[sp0rk173]

particularly if you take into account that it actually looks half decent.

Unlike FVWM.

Best window manager ever.

[twitter]

With the pager in E, you can actually *place* the window within the pager...

Oooh, just like you've been able to do in fvwm for 10+ years now.

The E pager is very nice and I hope everything is just as good. It's been a long time since I've used fvwm, just as it had been a long time since I used E. I like E's real division between virtual desktops and screens, so you can have multiple pagers in E each with it's own desktop with multiple screens. I also like being able to drag and drop between the diffe

Damn sexy too

[linzeal]

Well it is also for some a highly functional way of organizing the desktop and has been in personal use for years. I still use enlightenment on my MAME box as it is just such a damn sexy thing to have the television with guests over.

Re:Vapourware

[eno2001]

You said: does that mean that mankind is a dead end street? That would be a resounding yes. I am working on developing the eventual sentience in machines. That is where things are going. ;p

Slashdot editors know their readers

[PetriBORG]

Clearly the editors know their readers so well! Due to the overly popular method of not reading the article, editors have apparently stopped including links to them all together so that readers aren't bothered by those nasty changes in text colors.

Well done.

Re:Slashdot editors know their readers

[sootman]

...so that readers aren't bothered by those nasty changes in text colors.

Actually, the jump from green to grey was a bit startling, but at least this story wasn't posted in IT. [slashdot.org]

Fedora & E17

[SlashdotOgre]

For anyone interested in testing out Enlightenment 17 in Fedora, you can find a repository here: http://sps.nus.edu.sg/~didierbe/news_e17.html [nus.edu.sg] I've used it with FC2 & 3, haven't tried FC4 yet, but so far it's been fairly stable. I do still prefer E16, but it's worth a shot.

Re:Fedora & E17

[kwalker]

I've been running E17 from that repository for a while now (On FC3) and I really like it. I still use E16 as my primary window manager because E17 is missing a few things I use (like remembering where windows go and a few other things) but it is really nice.

It's also fun running E17 inside a nested X server under E16. I had to pick up my Mac-loving graphic-artist friend after I showed him what a fully eye-candy E17 (animated background, animated menus, animated titlebars, etc) looks like without shutting down my X session.

Re:Fedora & E17

[the_greywolf]

I've been running E17 from that repository for a while now (On FC3) and I really like it. I still use E16 as my primary window manager because E17 is missing a few things I use (like remembering where windows go and a few other things) but it is really nice.

got good news for you then! window memory was implemented a couple of weeks ago. as were a lot of other must-have features from e16.

Re:Fedora & E17

[rdieter]

What be even *more* useful to more end-users would be to submit all those packages to Fedora Extras (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Extras [fedoraproject.org])

More potential available?

[Sv-Manowar]

Looking at the screenshots, Enlightenment seems to be bringing amazing eye candy to the standard X server. As they haven't yet leveraged the additional transparency & acceleration features present in some developmental X servers, its exciting to think how far they can speed up and enhance these visual effects even further. Despite being in development for so long, I think this presents an interesting design/style challenge to the more conservative KDE & Gnome desktops.

Cairo

[mnemonic_]

I wonder if they'll start taking advantage of Cairo [arstechnica.com] and Glitz [freedesktop.org]. Doing so would let graphics cards accelerate GUI drawing via OpenGL, a la Quartz on OS X. Hardware accelerated GUIs are a hallmark of modern operating systems (OS X, Windows Vista), it'd be nice if Linux could join the party too.

Re:Cairo

[jericho4.0]

Yes. IIRC, a lot of it is already available in CVS. I played around with Cairo and Luminocity a while ago, and some o the other bits and pieces going into our next desktop. I must say, I'm very impressed. The feature list is huge, the flexibility will allow designers to deliver nice looking stuff, and the performance is going to be stellar.

I've been using Windows a bit lately, after a long hiatus. It was apparent to me upon booting that my ubuntu desktop looks far better out of the box. When did that happen? Gee, I remember when we didn't even have X. Now it looks like we might even pull ahead of Apple in gooey eye candy goodness.

Re:Cairo

[dbIII]

I wonder if they'll start taking advantage of Cairo and Glitz ... accelerate GUI drawing via OpenGL

They've been using Evas for a few years - which supports OpenGL and hardware acceleration. Cairo wasn't around, and they are a few years and a lot of features ahead of it.

Re:More potential available?

[MindStalker]

He is saying they don't leverage the transparency features find in the newest X servers. Not that they don't use transparency. Anyways according to their documentation they are purposfully building it to for backwards compatibility to only classic X features. Hopfully they will find a way to use new features while gracefully falling back when they don't exist.

Hook!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Its off the hook! Not off the scale.

Jeez, don't you know anything about the hip-hop subculture?

Stable, beautiful....

[dhasenan]

I've been using E17 for the past few days. It's beautiful, and it's as stable as any desktop environment I've used--perhaps more so. Not all the features have been implemented; it still needs a menu editor to be really useful (or just tell me which config file to modify, and put one there by default), and I'd like to see an e17 terminal.

Still, it's lightweight, beautiful, features real transparency, and is unusually stable for being in heavy development.

Re:Stable, beautiful....

[crimson_alligator]

I'm not trying to be snarky, but comments like this regarding "stability" just baffle me.

You've used E17 for the "past few days", and it is "as stable as" or perhaps more stable than any desktop environment you have used.

Therefore you have never used a desktop environment that could run for more than a "few days" without crashing?

I thought "stable" means runs for days/weeks/months/years on end without crashing. Am I wrong? If not, how do you already know that E17 is EITHER as stable as OR more stable than any other desktop environment?

This reminds me of someone telling me that Mandrake 9.2 was more stable than 9.1---the day after it was released! (No, they hadn't been using cooker.)

Re:Stable, beautiful....

[flithm]

Well put. Unless you've been using it non stop for a year or so, you probably can't comment on its stability... unless it's to say that it is unstable.

Having said that, I've been using E17 on and off for about a year, and although I still wouldn't qualify myself able to comment on its stability, I will say this:

It feels solid. You know how you can just feel the difference? Like when you first tried OS/2 and compared it to Win 3.1... you didn't exactly know why, but you knew it was rock solid.

That's the way E17 feels.

I haven't had it crash on me, but I certainly wouldn't suggest people rush out to start using it as their main WM. It's just not ready yet. There are tons of features that still need to be implemented before it's usuable full time.

I look forward to it though, for those who like the E style, it's going to be awesome!

Re:Stable, beautiful....

[maw]

Stable can also refer to a relative lack of change. Software called stable can even be somewhat buggy - but at least the bugs are predictable. Software in SLES and RHEL (and Debian Obsolete^WStable) tends to fit this definition. Of course, it usually fits the "doesn't crash" definition as well.

Software under heavy development usually doesn't merit being called stable according to either definition.

Re:Stable, beautiful....

[killmenow]

Unless you can provide me with an application that demands "mission critical eye candy"

Hello?! Pr0n, dude. Duh!

Re:Stable, beautiful....

[p2sam]

use gnu screen. that way your jobs are attached to the screen, not the window manager.

(Note that we have deferred the problem again to another layer, but gnu screen is "as stable as any terminal multiplexor I have used, maybe more". :) )

http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/ [gnu.org]

Re:Stable, beautiful....

[the_greywolf]

there is a menu editor. entangle.

also, you can edit the menu itself in ~/.e/e/applications/ wherein you can find engage's sticky icons, your icon bar, startup apps, apps to run on restart, as well as your favorites menu.

Re:Stable, beautiful....

[flithm]

I think he meant a new Eterm. Yes of course Eterm still runs, but it's horrendously outdated now compared to some of the more modern terminals (especially gnome-terminal and konsole).

Gnome-terminal has the added advantage of using imlib2 (which is what made Eterm so fast), and includes such nice features as tabs, psuedo-trans, HUGE scrollbacks, really nice mouse support, clickable web and email addresses (if any should appear in the console text)... and much more.

Eterm 0.9.x really just doesn't cut it anym

Got it on FreeBSD

[FromWithin]

I use it daily on my laptop here on FreeBSD 5.4. It really is superb. I previously used xfce4, but have switched over to this now. Startup time is about 3 seconds, speed is excellent with loads of graphic effects. Themes available are really nice. The only criticism I have is the use of binary files for some config stuff (menus and icons).

I highly recommend it. Can't wait for the full release (not least because I haven't bothered to compile the extra utils).

Re:Got it on FreeBSD

[Daeron]

it's availabe in x11-wm/enlightenment-devel

Re:Got it on FreeBSD

[FromWithin]

I made sure the dependencies were available with ports, then used the enlightenment-0.16.999.013 package.

Re:Got it on FreeBSD

[FromWithin]

Well I'm using it on my 800MHz Celeron laptop with the worst Trident graphics chip, so yours should be fine. It works great here.

Gentoo has had it for months

[glimt]

I'm not a Gentoo apologist or advocate, but it has had DR17 available as an ebuild (like the rest of the distribution) for months.

Re:Gentoo has had it for months

[Fastball]

Apparently that some people (e.g. yourself) need things spelled out for them.

Re:Gentoo has had it for months

[the_greywolf]

i really wanted to give it a try.

i now run this on a fairly regular basis:

schedtool -B -e emerge eet evfs edb evas ecore embryo imlib2 edje e epeg epsilon esmart entrance emotion eclair ewl engrave e_utils e_modules etox erss entice engage elicit eterm evidence e17genmenu

i've been happily using e17 for a couple months, keeping up with all the major CVS changes. (of course, i'm subscribed to the CVS list so i can keep track of it all.)

Enlightenment version numbering....

[Danathar]

Can somebody explain to me the reasoning behind WHY they use such a strange numbering methodology for Enlightenment?

Re:Enlightenment version numbering....

[shdragon]

You've never used Enlightenment have you? If you had, you'd know it really is alpha software. :D

Besides, EnlightenmentXP or Enlightenment Panther both sound silly.

Re:Enlightenment version numbering....

[Danathar]

Oh..it's cool software. Just did'nt understand why they chose that particular way of numbering it.

Re:Enlightenment version numbering....

[tuggy]

the latest stable version of enlightenment is 0.16, DR means Development Release (yes, a stable development release).
The next version will be 0.17, so its called DR17.

Slashdotted

[nikremt]

I have installed DR17 from CVS on my gentoo distribution, so I was really interested in looking at vector linux's website after reading this. However, it appears to me that since I can't get through, then they must have been slashdotted.

Precision in all things

[Nom du Keyboard]

All I have to say is Enlightenment on VectorLinux is absolutely off the scale.

Which way?

Re:Precision in all things

[robyannetta]

All I have to say is Enlightenment on VectorLinux is absolutely off the scale.

Which way?

Well, to quote "Ghostbusters":

"Went right off the top of the scale. Buried the needle! We're close on this one, I can feel it!"

I've been enlightened.

[kwieland in stl]

eHave eYou? (iApple and KDE?)

I can't wait for the fork:

[ImaLamer]

eEnlightenment

Looks/works great on Ubuntu

[bad_outlook]

I run e17 (16.999.whatever) on Ubuntu from a HOWTO available in the forums. There is a .deb repository you can tie into, so now even the 'Ubuntu update' auto thingy even finds updates to those, so it's part of my system now. It's very slick, feels like the speed of Fluxbox but the look of, well...nothing really; it's in a class by itself.

Re:Looks/works great on Ubuntu

[digidave]

can you please post the repository? I googled some deb 'http://ubuntu.nooms.de/ hoary/' but the files are not located in /hoary instead of /dists/hoary and I can't figure out how to make apt-get use it that way.

ubuntuforums seem to be down.

Re:Looks/works great on Ubuntu

[bad_outlook]

but of course:
deb http://ubuntu.nooms.de/ [nooms.de] hoary/ enjoy

Re:Looks/works great on Ubuntu

[poofyhairguy82]

Here is my deb line:

deb http://ubuntu.nooms.de/ [nooms.de] hoary/

To get it to work I had to comment out the Universe line.

Speedy Enlightenment?

[Doc Ruby]

Anything to speed up desktop drawing. I installed Ubuntu v5.04 on my Inspiron8000/512MB/GeForce2GO, and gnome-terminal was sucking up 80% CPU, just by dragging the cursor across it! After searching all kinds of maillists, I learned to drop antialiasing, which still puts gnome-terminal at 5-15% CPU when cursor dragging. To say nothing of the rest of the drawing updates: I can see the pixels redrawing as I drag windows around, nevermind the slimetrail of "windowprints" where I dragged it from, until I drop it.

Linux usually gets much more efficient use of the same HW than Windows. But I never saw GUI lethargy like this with Windows installed on that Inspiron.

Re:Speedy Enlightenment?

[kwalker]

A couple of things:

First, Gnome Terminal is dog slow and fat-ass. I never use it because it's such a resource drain. I use Eterm 0.9.3 actually and with the exception of it not liking some UTF-8, it works great. It takes up about 1/6 of the resources GT does.

Second, are you using the nv (Open Source) driver or the nVidia (Proprietary) driver? I've noticed the nv driver is incredibly slow compared to the nVidia driver, especially dragging windows around. I don't see pixels update, but refresh goes to about 1

Re:Speedy Enlightenment?

[Doc Ruby]

gnome-terminal is just an example of slow GUI apps, which are bogging down my whole Ubuntu system. The whole desktop is slow to start apps (5-20 seconds to start FireFox after a fresh reboot), or even to respond to menu item selections that open dialogs (5-20s). It reminds me of when you used to have to upgrade to a $200 VGA card to get useable performance out of Windows, because the GUI bottlenecked everything. But I will probably try to Eterm anyway, if that's all I can do.

As for my driver:
# diff /etc/X11

Re:Speedy Enlightenment?

[Chanc_Gorkon]

There has to be something wrong with your system. I currently am running Hoary on my Acer Celeron 2.0 GHz Machine with only 256 MB of ram and Ubuntu is pretty responsive. Only 2 things take some time to run....OpenOffice.org 1.1 (I have never liked it) and firefox is a bit slow launching. Once running, they are both fine usually. I am definitely going to try the new Enlightenment tonight.

girls

[shawn443]

Real men don't use desktops, they use twm and throw down with some .twmrc

Seriously though, while those screenshots do look nice, I haven't yet looked at a flashy desktop and wished it on my system. I prefer every ounce of my cpu going to my applications. top -p 4148 just showed twm using .07 of my memory and exactly 0.0 of my cpu.

Re:girls

[DaCool42]

I can't believe you use that outdated WM! Get with the times and switch to FVWM!

Re:girls

[Klivian]

Real men don't use desktops, they use twm and throw down with some .twmrc

Bah! Real men don't use .rc files, they use WMX and have to recompile to change the settings.

e17

[Anonymous Coward]

I used e17 for a few weeks last month as my primary WM. It is indeeded beautiful and all of the fancy effects worked smoothly even on my toaster 800mhz transmeta laptop, but I eventually switched back to something more stable.

It's really not ready for prime-time yet, although it is certainly close. Maybe they've fixed these bugs in the last few weeks, but I noticed-

    * sometimes windows refuse to close after their owning process has been killed. These things just linger on the screen, filled with random garbage.

    * multiple monitors profoundly confuse the desktop-switching gadget and pager

    * evidence CVS was broken, so there's no e17 native file manager and I resorted to using nautilus

And of course it needs an e17 native version of eterm... that will be excellent when it shows up :P

The themes available so far don't really make use of the way-cool stuff edje can do... e17 is going to be really amazing once more themes and applications are built with its core libraries.

The best way to run E17

[poofyhairguy82]

The best way to run E17 is inside of Gnome. I call it Enlightened Gnome [ubuntuforums.org]. Then Gnome Apps look nice, you get to have nice Gnome things like it panel and its volume manager without dealing with the worst problem in Gnome (its default Window Manager-Metacity).

If you want the full effect you have to go into Gconf and tell nautilus to not draw the desktop, but otherwise it works pretty good. I have found that overall its faster than Metacity, and is more stable with xcompmgr. I just wish I could find another way to task switch in E17 that is not alt-tab, and I hope that one day E17 will conform to Freedesktop standards so I can use Kompose with it!

Re:The best way to run E17

[dhasenan]

In e17, you should be able to centre-click for a list of open windows, whether shaded, unshaded, or hidden.

Form vs. Function

[SCHecklerX]

The last time I tried enlightenment, I was not impressed. Eye candy is great, but I also want something that lets me work efficiently and consistently (Please, somebody modernize OS/2's WPS and make a WM that uses those concepts!). If enlightenment can deliver consistency and a usage model that gives us power (simple things are simple, hard things possible, etc), that would be great. If not, I'll just settle to next best thing to WPS I can find on linux, which is currently windowmaker with Rox-Filer.

Enlightenment on Debian unstable

[sewagemaster]

http://www.soulmachine.net/wiki/index.php?title=En lightenment_on_Debian_unstable [soulmachine.net]

Corrected link for e17 video

[RiffRafff]

http://enlightenment.org/Enlightenment/Screenshots /files/_files/e17_video.avi [enlightenment.org]

Re:I'm torn.

[Hinhule]

In the end, don't you get what you pay for?

Traditionaly yes, but with free stuff, you get what someone else paid for. If they paid a lot, you'll get good stuff.
However people who pay a lot to make something will usually want to get their investment back.

Now software came along with people who had ideas for the greater good. People donated their time and skill for this noble goal. What do we get, in some cases quality stuff for free and in other cases junk.
With normal stuff you can actually hold in your hand

Re:I'm torn.

[delire]

Mac OS X is UNIX done right.

What a vacuous, inane, empty load of rubbish. I use OSX alot, Linux moreso. If anything OSX is UNIX done 1 Way, and a reasonably inflexible, non-free, hardware dependent way at that. Is that "UNIX done right"? Next you'll be telling me the one button mouse is necessary because it encourages software developers to write applications with simpler interfaces.

Re:I'm torn.

[zr-rifle]

Enlightenment is what it is. A work in progress where a lot of innovation is going on. Like your shiny brushed metal interface on OSX? Guess where that came from? You're right, DR16.

DR17 is pretty much used by a lot of people. Obviously not as many as those using OSX, but then, even if only a handful of people ever visit your personal website/blog that doeswn't make it useless or pointless, does it?

At the end of the day, you use what suits you, your job and your habits. The role that OSS is playing today

Re:Link to actual review

[nocomment]

I'd say mirrordot, but they didn't even link TFA which means mirror dot won't catch it. If an editor would update that, then perhaps we will be able to get there, except that mirrordot probably won't get it now that the site has been crushed.

Re:Link to actual review

[winkydink]

Actually, mirrordot won't get it because the review wasn't referenced in the original posting.

Get with the program

[mindwar]

i believe the question is if it runs OSx86 these days.

Re:StyleXP

[orasio]

I'll bite.
Enlightenment is not a flavor of anything.
Enlightenment is not a desktop environment a la MSWindows explorer.exe .
KDE and Gnome are something like that.

Enlightenment is a window manager evolved into a desktop shell and lots more.
Imagine you were not a Windows user, and you didn't feel their metaphor is the natural metaphor for a GUI system.
Enlightenment proposes a different interface, plus a different interaction with objects from the user perspective. You can't really compare enlightenment with gnome, because they are completely different in their own essence.
Aside from that, enlightenment is a project that provides lots of useful general purpose libs, but back in the day, they defined what general purpose meant in many areas (e.g.:imlib, esd).
They are building libs that they think should be available to anyone building next generation stuff. They can be right, like before, or they can be coding useless stuff. We'll see.

Re:StyleXP

[G3ckoG33k]

From the link " Enlightenment has grown to be much more than a window manager."

But, do we want it to be any of that? To me it sounds like it will be very much bloat, too, after some more years.

Re:StyleXP

[sp0rk173]

Yeah, i agreed with you until I actually tried it. If it's got bloat in it, it don't run like it. It's probably the most responsive desktop i've used, and the one with the most eye candy i've used, including OS X, Windows XP, Gnome 2.10, KDE 3.4. Those two things don't usually go together. Somehow rasterman pulled it of, if it is bloated. Otherwise, he's just a damn good coder.

Re:StyleXP

[FLAGGR]

because they're not? Have you ever used OSX? It's almost completly different. For example, with the dock+expose+the way windows get tiled, you don't need multiple desktops. First thing I did (after installing developer tools, x11 layer etc..) when I got OSX was download a multidesktop hack, but within about 2 days I found it wasn't necissary. Even the hacks that try and make KDE/etc into Aqua don't get it right (I'm assuming they're jsut looking at screenshots or something)

KDE/etc are way closer to windows

Re:StyleXP

[anagama]

Somewhere a few posts back someone (not you) was talking about how people should just work on building one perfect desktop environment. A dumb comment IMHO -- along the lines of "let's perfect Vanilla, forget about Mint Chocolate Chip."

Anyway ... I too downloaded a multidesktop program within a couple days of getting my powerbook as well -- and I still use it. Compose just doesn't do it for me -- perhaps it's because I'm on a laptop (15"). I like having my procrastination junk on the first desktop -- ma

Re:StyleXP

[Brandybuck]

I don't know why you mention multiple desktops, because Windows does NOT HAVE MULTIPLE DESKTOPS!

There is some third party software that will do it on Windows, but it's not there by default, nor is it in any way common. Your idea that OSX is different from Windows because it doesn't have multiple desktops is strange, to say the least.

p.s. Expose is *NEW* to OSX. Are you claiming that pre-Expose OSX (as in 2004) was Windows-like?

p.p.s. I'm not claiming OSX to a clone of Windows. I'm only claiming that they us

Re:StyleXP

[orasio]

KDE has resemblances of MSWindows, with much of the good, and some of the bad (too much for _my_ own taste). It seems to _me_, just from observation, with no scientific evidence whatsoever, that they try to implement all the functionality the user needs, and they make it accesible with ways familiar to a common [MSWindows] user, thus obtaining a familiar environment for common [MSWindows] users.

Gnome, on the other hand, seems to me that they might lack some functionality common users can miss, but they focu

Re:StyleXP

[jacksonscottsly]

Sure, gnome is a lot like windows... but if the contest was between which DE (gnome or KDE) looked more like which commercial WM, it's pretty obvious that gnome resembles OSX more than KDE resembles OSX and that KDE resembles windows more than gnome resembles Windows... This is why it's easy to compare the two as people do...Perhaps the ways in which gnome is more like osx and kde is more like windows are few, but they are also quite obvious, methinks: - gnome...er metacity or whatever has a bar at the to

Re:StyleXP

[LWATCDR]

I find this strange... Enlightenment is not a product you are paying for. You are not paying people that are writing it. You are not a stock holder in a company developing it. What right to you have to say the people working on it shouldn't?
If you do not like it don't use it. If you want a customizable engine like StyleXP then write it. Nothing is stopping you.

Re:StyleXP

[ShieldW0lf]

Well, that's an elitist attitude! This is the EXACT reason why Linux has a rough time on the desktop. Users are used to saying well I like this like that and I wish the taskbar was green instead of blue. Linux developers need to design FOR the user instead of themselves if they want to take market share from Microsoft.

Elitist:
1. The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources.
2.
a. The sense of entitlement enjoyed by such a group or class.
b. Control, rule, or domination by such a group or class.


Ok, now what is there in this definition that matches the developers? Are they expecting favoured treatment from someone because they are developers? No. Are they making demands that they feel they have an intrinsic entitlement to because they are developers? No. Are they attempting to use their developer status to control anyone? No.

Now, lets apply this test to YOU, the user. Are you expecting favoured treatment from someone because you are a user? Yes, you're demanding that the developers should cater to your needs. Are you making demands that you feel you have an intrinsic entitlement to because you are a user? Yes, you appear to think that being the user makes you the King, and apparently you're used to being listened to when you make stupid demands like changing colors etc. Are you attempting to use your "user" status to control anyone? Well, your whole point was that there is some natural order to things that places you at the top of the heap because you are a user.

So, I guess what I'm basically saying is stop being elitist, and go learn what the word means before you use it in public.

Re:StyleXP

[hungrygrue]

What you are missing, however, is that no matter how many skins you can toss on XP it is still just XP painted a little differently. Can you get tabbed windows like Fluxbox? Multiple desktops like... err... everything? These different window managers and desktop environments all have different purposes and design goals. For a full desktop, there is Gnome (with its huge collection of themes), for something a little lighter on resources there is XFCE, for bare bones but slick as snot there are window managers like Fluxbox. For a shiny gaudy desktop whose applications all start with the same letter, there is KDE. These different interfaces don't just look different from each other, they also *work* differently.

Re: Multiple desktops for WinXP

[markhb]

I got yer virtual desktops right here [microsoft.com].

Re:StyleXP

[khellendros1984]

Windows powertools allows some fun stuff, like Linux-style mouse focusing, multiple desktops, MacOS-like Expose switching...

However, programs aren't expecting windows to have capabilities like that, so it's a bit glitchy, sometimes, haha

That said, Every Linux WM/DE that I've used has implemented these capabilities better.

Re:Not trying to start a flame war (honest)...

[BlackFoliage]

What does this window manager do that Mac OS X's doesn't?

Run on Linux? It's free software?

Re:Not trying to start a flame war (honest)...

[vertinox]

I ask not because I'm trying to trumpet OS X; I'm trying to understand whether there's real innovation here, or whether this is being touted only because it's more advanced than Gnome/KDE.

Well, it's not really an innovation, but a welcome design change (at least IMO) to copy OS X rather than Windows. Even though I have used Windows 95, 98, 2000, and XP and only recently bought a Mac in 2003 (I have a PC with Ubuntu on it if anyone is curious) and found the interface just seems more logical once you get used

Re:Not trying to start a flame war (honest)...

[delire]

What does this window manager do that Mac OS X's doesn't?

.. cost anything.

Several years ago, when I saw the panel on OSX I immediately thought of Enlightenment. Chicken meet egg. On another front, Enlightenment is alot more (shock) fun.

Re:Not trying to start a flame war (honest)...

[trans_err]

it runs on linux.

Re:Not trying to start a flame war (honest)...

[mobrep]

It seems like everyone is stuck on the similarities between osx and enlightenment. Yes, enlightenment has had a dock panel for years. Engage's interface does resemble osx's docker for the pure fact that it is both eye candy and functonal. One thing I have not seen you guys mention is that even though they look the same the libs and everything else behind engage are meant for it to be fast, pretty and functional all at the same time.

Most of you that have never looked at enlightenment probably think it is just another windows manager. However, as others have stated under this topic, enlightenment is built on top of libs that are meant to increase speed, stability and useablitly. Yes, e17 is lacking useablitly right now because it is still under heavy development and there are still changes being made to the libs themselves and the window manager will be the last thing being updated.

Re:Not trying to start a flame war (honest)...

[Idealius]

rofl u just made my day.

Re:DR17?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps this isn't a troll. If you are not familiar with Enlightenment, it is not obvious.

The last release of Enlightenment [wikipedia.org](an XWindows windows manager) was 0.16, and it used to be the default window manager for GNOME. It was released in 2000 (last stable) and an update was released December of last year (2004).

DR17 indicates it is a development release (i.e. not advisable to use in a production machine) of the next version (0.17, or "17" for short). There are some very novel things in it, and all-