

E17 (Enlightenment) enters alpha after 12 years - stock_toaster
http://www.enlightenment.org/p.php?p=news/show&l=en&news_id=62

======
dschiptsov
Yeah, I also remember E16.. Seems like Rasterman was the first one who made
icons, that represent the content of file, and those transparent window titles
and other decorations. And pseudo-transparent ETerm. Now we have all that in
Gnome, but back then it was a feeling of going into the right direction.

Nowadays it must be a great product, because it was made with vision, for
themselves, re-implementing cleanly and consistently all the layers from the
very foundation, with attention to every detail. These are landmarks of a
remarkable opensource product.

Someday I will replace my Gnome.)

~~~
simcop2387
Heck from what I remember, half of the compsiting stuff that's done now with
compiz/kwin in modern desktops was pioneered with E17 development, they used
Xgl before the accelerated compositing was possible with
GLX_texture_from_pixmap and the like.

------
anigbrowl
Rasterman is kinda rushing into this, no? Seems like just last millenium I was
installing DR16.

I would love for it to catch on again, but I wonder if/how it can build an
audience after such a long hiatus (notwithstanding EFL etc.).

~~~
protomyth
Well, given that nothing else became a standard and their are a tad bit of
people unhappy with Gnome 3, it still has a pretty good chance. It does seem
to be ok on the BSDs and the libraries are quite nice to use elsewhere so that
is a bonus

~~~
tom9729
I think for the most part, the people that are unhappy with Gnome 3 aren't
looking for something new: they just want Gnome 2.

~~~
lloeki
I sure don't. Various areas like the GNOME panel were visibly crutchy and full
of historical assumptions/design. This was fixed with GNOME 3 but other areas
were/are suffering various levels of undue abuse. If I were looking for GNOME
2 I'd be using XFCE instead (as many people around me are). In place I use OSX
— both a more solid foundation and more configurable than GNOME3 — and
Awesome/Arch — striving to drop all/most GTK and QT dependencies.

------
abuzzooz
At one point, my favorite desktop by far. As it happens, a few weeks ago I
decided to take E16 for a spin after many many years of neglect. It still felt
great and snappy. I'll be trying this latest alpha for sure.

~~~
danudey
That's not really impressive, considering it was designed for computers from
15 years ago. I'd be pretty surprised if it _weren't_ snappy.

Still a nice environment though, and ridiculously customizable.

------
losvedir
Wow! I still have "rasterman.com" memorized because I'd check in once every
year or two for the past decade it feels like, to see how it was going.
Something about E17 always seemed cool, but I've never used Linux as my
primary desktop so I haven't played around with it much. Congrats to the team!

~~~
struppi
Some years ago (in 2005 or 2006) I always ran the latest E17 builds as my
primary desktop environment. I really liked it! Some things about it were
awesome, but OTOH it always was a little bit incomplete. It just took too
long, because in 2006 I bought a mac and moved away from Linux.

On my current laptop I had Linux installed for a couple of months, but I
didn't try E17 anymore. It just was too late, I didn't want to go through the
checkout/build/install stuff again. And now I have removed Linux completely
(again), because an Ubuntu update took four days, and after that my mouse
didn't work anymore.

Anyway, congrats to the E17 team! I still think you have a great piece of
software there.

~~~
dfc
It is too bad that you gave up on Linux and Enlightenment. e17 has been in
Debian for a while now, you do not have to manually build it anymore. Why did
the update take you 4 days? Are you bandwidth limited? Dialup?

------
CJefferson
Does anyone have a good guide, or set of packages, to get this going in
Ubuntu?

I have tried a couple of guides and packages already, so please only suggest
something if you know it works, I know how to google!

~~~
limpangel
You can install it from this ppa [https://launchpad.net/~hannes-
janetzek/+archive/enlightenmen...](https://launchpad.net/~hannes-
janetzek/+archive/enlightenment-svn) .

    
    
      $ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:hannes-janetzek/enlightenment-svn
      $ sudo apt-get update
      $ sudo apt-get install e17
    

Logout and choose Enlightenment before login. Have fun!

~~~
buster
Also try out terminology, the new E17 terminal. It has an awesome look and
feel. Once it supports tabs i'll use it fulltime :)

~~~
billiob
Thank you. It's on my TODO-list but not on top priority. I'm mostly working on
compatibility issues these days. If you found some, please open a bug report
or contact me about them.

~~~
buster
Oh great, one thing i noticed weeks ago (and apparently it's still behaving
that way):

When you maximise the terminal and mark everything with the mouse the CPU goes
crazy. efreet_icon_cache is taking up 100% CPU and the laptop becomes very
noisy.. I guess it's not supposed to take up all CPU for that good looking
marked text thingy :)

~~~
billiob
I can reproduce your issue. Please don't mark everything with your mouse for
the time being :)

~~~
dhimes
I came here from google search for a problem- I missed HN the day this thread
came on. I 'discovered' enlightenment last summer and found it to be a
wonderful solution for my netbook. I was traveling alot and pretty much have
my netbook as a full development 'travel rig.'

The problem is that I want to have gnome installed side-by-side-- which seems
to mean that the network manager (EConnMan I think you call it) doesn't work.

I know there was a way to do it but I forgot (that's what brings me to this
page).

So, my comment: If this could sit easily and seamlessly next to gnome- that
is, whatever hack is needed for EConnMan (and perhaps other 'gotchas') were
built in as shortcuts, for example, I think you would win a lot of people
over. It's excellent for being an out-of-the way work environment.

I also think it helps show off the linux world when you can quickly and easily
switch between work environments. My $0.02.

EDIT: So I'm now logged in on E and obviously remembered the network hack:
start nm-applet from the terminal. It will at least connect to a known
network.

EDIT #2: The only other issue I've had on the netbook is getting the control-
bar-menu gizmo out of the way of the windows so I can use the screen real
estate I have for my editors and such. You have to turn this on in settings.

------
dmm
The EFL are amazing! E17 is a compositing WM with great software rendering.
The software rendering is so fast that you can mistake it for hardware
accelerated.

<http://www.enlightenment.org/p.php?p=about/efl>

------
urza
What are the key features? Why should I wanna try use it? Where is it better
then other window managers? I cant find these information on the website. Just
that it is "lean, fast, modular and very extensible window manager" which
tells me nothing. I see that it is also for Mac and Windows. What does it have
that these OSes dont have? What would be the benefint of using E17 ond windows
7?

~~~
jrogers65
You appear to be have come across a cultural conflict since you are
approaching this as if it were a product when in actuality it is an OSS
project. There is no motivation or desire on the part of the developers to
sell anything to you, hence the lack of marketing. Marketing is generally a
non-term in this culture. Good ideas spread through word of mouth here.
Outside of the world of business, the responsibility for learning about new
things is placed squarely on the side of the end user (this includes end users
promoting projects to each other), not the developers.

But to answer your question, this project is an incredible engineering feat.
E17 is built on top of a set of libraries which provide lightening fast
rendering even on the CPU. The previous incarnation of Enlightenment, E16, was
considered to be one of the most advanced window managers for it's time due to
the rich eye candy it provided (and this was back in the days of KDE 1 when
everything else looked grey and boring). E17 has been in development for a
very long time much to the dismay of many a geek. It is the Duke Nukem Forever
of window managers. It's not as impressive in this era of compositing window
managers (though it can do that too), but if you ever find yourself wanting to
use a slick WM on a Pentium 2 then this will run as smooth as silk.

~~~
zvrba
He's asking valid questions. I'd ask a succint question: what features can
make it more productive to me in comparison with, say, Windows 7 desktop?

> There is no motivation or desire on the part of the developers to sell
> anything to you,

This I disagree with. Why else would they made it available for download?
(They might not be marketing the software, but they are marketing _something_
\-- e.g., their coding skills.)

~~~
jrogers65
These points have already been addressed by others but I'll elaborate further.

This is simply a different culture and perspective. I know that in business we
primarily tend to think of things in terms of the value they provide. The
motivation behind OSS projects rarely has anything to do with personal profit.
They tend to happen because someone is trying to address a personal need and
decides to share their solution with the world, or they just want to create
something cool for the sake of it or they're trying to learn a new technology
and need something to practice on. It's like charity - you don't advertise the
fact that you do it, you just help out and hope that it makes a difference.
Personally, I think that people only really try to sell things when there is
an expectation of exchange - when something is being given away for free, what
is the motivation for marketing it? Why would you waste time talking about the
result of doing the things you love to do instead of doing them?

I think that this is where the notion of marketing being a force of evil comes
from - if something is being sold, it's because someone is trying to convince
you to give up something you have. It is inherently selfish. OSS is the
opposite - it's selfless - you give without the expectation of getting (yet in
real terms you get many orders of magnitude more than you put in - something
which just doesn't happen in the business world). It's like a pyramid scheme
which actually works.

~~~
zvrba
> They tend to happen because someone is trying to address a personal need

This I understand and do not contend.

> and decides to share their solution with the world

This is marketing, not necessarily for the money. It may be for recognition
(yeah, I too know the "high" feeling when somebody comes to you and says
you're doing something cool); for the hope that more people will join in so
you get to be the leader; for having a non-trivial (hopefully) successful
project to put on the CV; to feel yourself useful to the community, etc, etc.

Bottom line: when you make something publicly available, you're marketing it.
You're "selling" your product in exchange for some of the immaterial goods
(see above) that you can get only from other people.

------
yankcrime
I was a huge fan / dedicated user of E16 back in the day. Someone needs to
prod Garrett LeSage, tigert, et al and get them to update their old themes
(SpiffE17 please Garrett!).

------
aditya
Would love to see screenshots if anyone got it built and running?

~~~
klibertp
Few examples (many, many people got this "built and running"):

    
    
        http://e17-stuff.org/CONTENT/content-pre2/95258-2.jpeg
        http://e17-stuff.org/CONTENT/content-pre2/100923-2.jpeg
        http://e17-stuff.org/CONTENT/content-pre2/110281-2.jpeg
        http://e17-stuff.org/CONTENT/content-pre2/115796-2.jpeg
    

And I use heavily customized bohdi theme, which originally looked like this:
<http://e17-stuff.org/CONTENT/content-pre2/119928-2.jpeg>

Unfortunately, I'm sick and not going to work this week, so no screenshots of
my desktop today :(

------
ricardobeat
I wanted to see a screenshot. I clicked the image on the home page, it took me
to the "About" page. I clicked the image on the about page, it took me to the
wiki. I still can't find a single full-size image.

BTW, if you're interested in a modern Linux desktop, you should look at
ElementaryOS (<http://elementaryos.org/discover>). It's built on Ubuntu, so
has great hardware support.

------
antihero
The design seems to feel like they were designed by someone with no aesthetic
taste but has just made things they think will look bling. I'm sure that it
does something very impressive, but I can't see why everyone raves about it.

~~~
gnarbarian
Well, back 10 years ago when Gentoo worked like Ubuntu does now except it was
n^2 slower and came with 3 difficulty modes for installation, e16 was the
bee's knees window manager. You could edit your own GUI menus by configuring a
text file! everything was infinitely customizable. EVERYTHING. not to mention
having transparent eterms with really cool backgrounds. In this context, e17
was the shang-ri-la of desktop environments and also perpetual vaporware. I
looked forward to e17 for years but they never seemed to make progress. Just a
screenshot here and there, tantalizing us. then Compiz came out and I forgot
about it completely. The allure has to do with the fact that it had great
potential and it was being made by uncompromising perfectionists. Like the
novel that the fans were begging to be released but the Author refused because
it wasn't quite perfect yet. Well now, after so many years, the progenitor is
ready to reveal the creation. I am ready to see the vision.

~~~
0x09
Well, you say that, but really it's had rather stable and public development,
and it was my main desktop for a long time in 2005 and 6. I think part of the
reason it became so drawn out was that it was already more or less a release
product without the release numbers.

------
stock_toaster
Oh man. I remember using e16 for a while way back in the day. The "water
effect" desktop thing always turned heads.

aside: Interesting, but brief, interview with the project lead (Carsten
"Rasterman" Haitzler): [http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Seeking-
Enlightenment-...](http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Seeking-
Enlightenment-1739812.html)

------
Jach
Ran it, wasn't able to get my second monitor to rotate to the proper
orientation within 5 minutes, switched back to Gnome2. (I hear the MATE fork
is doing well on distros that took away Gnome2.) It didn't seem much prettier
than stock Xfce4, but it's good to have competition and congrats on the
project for lasting this long.

------
lloeki
From the about page [0]:

> _Free.fr is shipping millions of set top boxes in France, powered by EFL_

Free is a major ISP here (and a major proponent of FOSS and net neutrality)
and I was really surprised at that. It's apparently part of a SDK. The box GUI
looks like a variant of XBMC[0].

[0]:
[http://www.enlightenment.org/p.php?p=about&l=en](http://www.enlightenment.org/p.php?p=about&l=en)
[1]:
[http://www.mac4ever.com/images-v3-actu/59410_352_la_freebox_...](http://www.mac4ever.com/images-v3-actu/59410_352_la_freebox_revolution_disponible_le_3_janvier_merite_son_nom.jpg)
[2]: <http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elixir_(Freebox)>

------
leadholder
I took E16, newly installed on my laptop, to a work presentation once. I was
really excited to turn the thing on and see everyone's eyes bug out. But I
plugged the projector in and it turned out there was some strange
compatibility problem. One step forward, two back.

------
DrinkWater
i still remember me hacking through all the configuration files of E16,
yeeeeears ago.

If i hadn't shifted from Linux to MacOSX, it would probably still be my window
manager of choice.

But boy, this e17 thing is taking a ridiculous long time!

------
jejones3141
e17 has been pretty darned useful and, from my user's viewpoint, stable for
pre-alpha software... and the anti-user, customization is evil attitude of the
GNOME 3 developers has pushed me to switch to e17. I seriously recommend Bodhi
Linux.

------
syassami
I never understood the allure of enlightenment, I always thought XFCE,
Fluxbox/blackbox/openbox was a much more aesthetic minimal de. Everytime I saw
an enlightenment desktop I thought I was being sent back in the past

~~~
w0utert
Enlightenment was never supposed to be aesthetically minimal, quite the
contrary in fact. When every other WM still had flat menu bars and Windows 95
style start menu's, Enlightenment was full of chrome, graphical effects and
elaborate theming facilities. It was really a showcase for making your desktop
look good, with minimal hardware requirements.

~~~
buster
Indeed.. i remember when i was so proud to have a nice looking desktop manager
with really old hardware running, it was awesome.

Nowadays i am not sure.. i will try E17 again and see how it compares today :)

(p.s.: i even did a screencast of my "wunderful" E17 Desktop 5 years ago and
it still has effects and a look and feel that is ahead of gnome/unity/xfce
with a laptop that was over 5 years old back then.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lOa8o1tgIU> )

~~~
adam-a
Oh my, I'd almost forgotten about all the gold. Lot's of excessive shimmering
too.

It's clearly a technically very impressive desktop environment, but I always
thought they needed better design for the actual themes.

~~~
buster
That's why i used the black alternative scheme, that was muuuuch better. :)

------
zeruch
As someone who has known Carsten (Raster) for well over a dozen years, and has
given him a never-ending stream of invective for being slower than George W.
Bush doing calculus...its about bloody time.

------
Bjoern
I know its yet another useless comment, but back in the day of E16 and
beginnings of E17 I was a really big fan. Its great to see it finally being
Alpha!

Congratulations to the Enlightenment team!

------
zemanel
As a Gnome fan, i used E16 as a replacement for Metacity (i believe?) and it
was great.

This one time at a former employer, my boss was touring a visitor around the
office while i was flipping the windows just because and it got their
attention for a 5m talk ("oh shiny what is that ?") :-)

------
10098
wish this could be the answer to all the gnome mess that has been going on
lately...

------
89a
Remember BlueSteel?

Remember installing linux for the first time to try it out?

Remember discovering what a winmodem was…

~~~
stuaxo
Hey, there was the ridiculously named 'Hand of god' theme with the titlebar on
the side !

Good days ... running the ripple effect on the bottom ... bring me bling !

~~~
stinos
yes yes, the ripple effect. In those days people could hardly believe what
they were seeing and all went like 'is THAT linux?'

~~~
balakk
And that sweet dramatic unveiling of the desktop, swishing across virtual
desktops, funky pager, widgets...

Linux was so much fun and personal those days.

~~~
fghh45sdfhr3
That was before we tried to make Linux a mass market OS.

