Enlightenment 0.17, the big, long awaited new release of the Enlightenment project, has been in the making for a long time now - since December 2000, to be precise. E17, as it became known, is a complete rewrite of Enlightenment, complete with a set of base libraries (the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries) turning it into a full-fledged desktop environment, complete with its own set of base libraries for building applications. Last November, main developer Carsten 'Rasterman' Haitzler stated that there were only two big to-do items left blocking the release of E17. We're now a few months ahead, so I contacted Rasterman to see what's what.
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Member since:2005-07-07
I'm sure many will disagree, but I feel like with the work that's been thrown behind Gnome and KDE recently that E17 is losing it's relevancy.
I agree. I think it's been so long coming that die-hard Enlightenment users have long since switched to other window managers or desktop environments. E17 is going to have to win over a whole new set of users. That means there is going to have to be some significant advantages over other environments in order for it to gain any mindshare in today's FOSS world. I guess the best thing E17 has going for it now is its relatively small footprint.
Member since:2006-01-22
Member since:2005-09-28
Member since:2008-03-17
I used to use it 3 years ago (compiled from cvs), even back then it was quite stable. I stopped using it because it seemed to be going nowhere fast and after a while it was just easier to use gnome and kde.
I would say it is a good replacement for those who still use e16 and it is similarly lightweight in comparison to xfce (but prettier in my opinion).
I think though that they spent too much time faffing around with creating etk when they should have just used gtk and made an engine that is suited to e17. There aren't enough apps that use etk and so the desktop is inevitably going to use gtk and qt based apps.
It has taken too long but there is little they could do about it short of getting more people to work on it.
Edited 2008-04-24 22:13 UTC
Member since:
2006-03-03
Been waiting for E17 for a very long time, one of the first window managers I ever became comfortable with was E16 but it wasn't long before it was passed up by the other full desktops. I'm sure many will disagree, but I feel like with the work that's been thrown behind Gnome and KDE recently that E17 is losing it's relevancy. Maybe my idea of who the audience that E17 is targeting is out of date, anyone have any idea what that might be today?
Edited 2008-04-24 21:28 UTC