Enlightenment 0.16.8 (now known simply as 'E16') has been released. This new release comes with a built-in composite manager, a systray, simplified configuration files, and session scripting. E16.8 is incompatible with configuration settings and custom menu configuration files from earlier versions, and as such they will have to be changed in order to work with E16.8.
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Member since:2005-10-12
There is a lot to be said for WindowMaker on old hardware. Very fast, and surprisingly accessible to naive users. At a poor charity I put it on an old K6 machine that wouldn't run anything else, and a lady with a real phobia about computers said after a quick demo, well of course I could use that.
The problem with many DTEs is that they are marketing designed, and their purpose is for sale rather than use. You will never go into a room full of screens running OSX and XP and KDE and Gnome and pick out the one running WindowMaker after a two minute tour. It is totally unspectacular. After a couple of weeks of use, however, its a different matter, especially for people who just want to get to and use two or three apps and are prepared to use the file manager as a desktop. I put in xfe, which some find sacreligious.
Enlightenment is equally fast, but probably not for the naive user. I would agree with the other poster about E-Live. That's a wonderful effort by the little team, a painless way to try it, and very nicely done. Really deserves support.
You can also get E17 prepackaged on one of the premium edition of Vector for a modest fee. Will make it a lot easier to install.
Enlightenment may just be ready for a comeback!
Member since:
2005-11-08
I like everyones nostalgic comments so let me add mine: 5-6 years ago (!) when I was fresh into linux I played around with almost all windowmanagers available (at that time). Before I get stuck to windowmaker (anyone remember this?) I had a long relatioship with enlightement ...
Basically I think that the times where people would be impressed by a plain window manager have passed. Users expect more sophisticated desktop environments that can do more that move the windows around or respond to a couple of keyboard shortcuts. E17 seems to go in an interesting direction. What bothers me is that even if it gets released after 10 years, it will still be the most innovative and easy to use desktop ever (I am not very optimistic about the rest).