Gaining Enlightenment

Prelude

Now you don't have to sit under a Bodhi tree to gain Enlightenment, you can simply install it.

I am of course talking about Enlightenment DR17, a powerful desktop shell that runs on Linux and FreeBSD (and other POSIX variants, but I focus on these two here). It has been in development for several years (due to a small number of developers who have to work on other things to make a living), but it's good enough to work with, and amazing to use.

There is an interview with Rasterman, the creator of the Enlightenment desktop shell here that gives some nice details, and you can check the additional links on this page, or do your own research to see what I mean.

Status

There are several projects to bring Enlightenment to Linux and FreeBSD, most are in early state of development.

Ubuntu Linuxs' Enlightenment project : ebuntu, and another Quick'n'Dirty Method.

Enlightenment for Slackware : slacke17.

Enlightenment on FreeBSD : There is a development version of e17 in ports (cd to /usr/ports/x11-wm/enlightenment-devel/ and run make install should do it), or you can compile it from the Enlightenment CVS too, it should compile without any trouble if you give correct CFLAGS & LDFLAGS to configure. I have found though that there are several things broken with Enlightenment under FreeBSD. When I have more time, I should step up and try to help fix some of these issues as I would like to see it run as well under FreeBSD as it does under Linux. There is also a file here that could help.

Enlightenment for Debian : See the next section.

The Ultimate Experience

If you want to experience Enlightenment in it's most well-rounded and optimized form, then I suggest you download the Live CD from elivecd.org. You can experience it, and then if you like it, install it directly from the CD. It installs a Debian Linux system with an optimized version of Enlightenment. A note though, the install to HD (if you choose to do it) currently takes a looooong time; I had to leave it overnight, but the results were fantastic.

Tips For eLive

This section will grow as I play with Enlightenment. Most of the suggestions are for the install that came from the eliveCD (which is based on Debian), but some will work for other distributions/OSs...

how to remove an item from the iBar (icon panel) : settings are here: ~/.e/e/applications/bar

how to modify menus : settings are here: ~/.e/e/applications/favourite

how to modify Engage : settings are here: ~/.e/e/applications/engage

how to add other software : first you need to update the apt database: apt-get update then you simply run apt-get install APPLICATIONNAME

how to connect via a vpn : look at my FreeBSD VPN page, but change pkg-add -r vpnc to apt-get install vpnc

modify the terminal : first you'll need to apt-get install terminal-manager, then you can run it from the elpanel or just type terminal-manager

Gaining Enlightenment

Prelude

Status

The Ultimate Experience

Tips For eLive

More Links