Enlightenment version 16 was one of most configurable window managers back in late nineties (and still is). For the next version however Rasterman and friends decided to create a complete desktop shell instead of just a simple window manager. Enlighenment version 17 is therefore based on a set of graphical libraries which can used for other applications as well. But do we need another set of libraries when QT and GTK+ are already mature and stable? Depending on your needs, you might find that using the Enlightenment libraries is truly an enlightening experience!
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Member since:2006-01-06
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-08-18
I really can't tell what's wrong with your setup but on Kubuntu 10.10 my CPU usage with E17 is close to 0% most of the time. That's with the default theme (it has some system monitors), chromium and an xterm running. This is one a 5+ year old laptop at 1.3 ghz with crummy Intel 855GM video.
So yeah, I'd say it's pretty damn smooth and speedy. Although it would be nice if the default theme wasnt so washed out with white that you can't see anything of it.
Edited 2011-02-16 04:09 UTC
Member since:2009-08-11
Ill preface I appreciate the arch devs for packaging pre release software. Generally my experience with packaged e17 & efl has been shaky at best. For arch using repo package my cpu usage was relativley high to me 20-30, with composite more like 40-60%. Compiled I rarely go above 10%, including compositing. I don't know what it is, but self compiling just worked better. I used easy_e17 for a while and switched to my own package builds later. Archs package were pretty bare of configuration flags, however i think a lot of options are auto enabled. So I don't know where the problem is.
None the less I'm happy to hear this I've been an e17 user since 2005, prior to that an e16 user. I have had great experiences with e17.
Member since:2009-04-23
You clearly have something broken in your setup..... I've ran e17 on much slower hardware without any hitches are you running KDE4/Gnome applications in tandem with e17 thats probably the problem... you get all the bloat of Gnome + QT4 + e17 which makes it look bad and it really isn't
Member since:2007-01-13
Member since:2005-08-02
Member since:
2005-07-11
Define "speed".
We've tried running E17 (via Arch Linux I believe) on our diskless machines (about a month ago), and while things are smooth, it's not speedy. And it comes at a *very* heavy price, using up most of the 1 GB of RAM and 90% CPU with just the desktop loaded with an animated wallpaper.
Disabling the animated wallpaper drops CPU usage a bit, but it's still over 80% when moving windows around or switching windows.
It sure looks pretty, though, with smooth animations and no tearing or anything like that. But it's definitely not "speedy", nor efficient.
This is on a 2.0 GHz AMD Sempron CPU with nVidia 6100 graphics onboard, and the binary nvidia driver.
GNOME 2.x, KDE 3.x, and even KDE 4.x are more efficient (10-20% CPU, 100-200 MB RAM) and nicer to use, on the same hardware. (One of the nice things about diskless clients is that switching OSes is a simple reboot away.)