E20 is out. Straight from the horse's mouth:
The E20 development cycle has come to a close, with 1890 patches submitted by over 50 developers in the course of 441 days.
25+ reported Coverity analyzer issues and 165 tickets were addressed during this time (based on commit message tagging).
I'd like to personally thank everyone who contributed, whether by submitting patches, writing documentation, reporting bugs, or simply providing feedback on IRC.
The bug reporting MVP for this cycle was @ApB with 231 submitted tickets: an impressive echievement, though I regret that only about 70% of these tickets were able to be solved.Release Highlights
- Full Wayland support
- New screen management infrastructure and dialog
- New audio mixer infrastructure and gadget
- Many internal widgets replaced with Elementary
- Improved FreeBSD support
- Geolocation module
The complete log can be seen here.
Every time they release a new major version I feel compelled to try it, then I remember why I don't dig Enlightenment. It's just too hardcore a desktop environment for me. Any of you lot use it regularly or do I have company in my ass-pansy-ness?
(Score: 2) by Post-Nihilist on Wednesday December 02 2015, @04:50AM
I build it straight from git. It is seriously awesome.
The per screen virtual desktop is the killer feature.
The configurability is match only by programmable tiling wm.
However, when the binary config crap itself, it suck big time.
Be like us, be different, be a nihilist!!!
(Score: 2) by Post-Nihilist on Wednesday December 02 2015, @05:12AM
Also there is some posts on thedalywtf about rasterman being an asshole, but I experience otherwise. I made a patch, he suggested real improvement to it and merge it into the mainline. Also I did find the source quite easy to understand, and I mostly program in java. The supposedly experienced C programmer criticizing the api must have looked only at the headers, it is open sources for God's sakes read the fucking sources....
Be like us, be different, be a nihilist!!!
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Wednesday December 02 2015, @05:58AM
Also there is some posts on thedalywtf about rasterman being an asshole, but I experience otherwise.
unless thedalywtf has several people reporting the same, both are anecdotal and thus should not be considered when judging his character.
The supposedly experienced C programmer criticizing the api must have looked only at the headers, it is open sources for God's sakes read the fucking sources....
with good code, you shouldn't have to look at the source if you have the headers. this is called encapsulation and it reduces the amount of knowledge required to make use of code. if it's poorly documenting, that's one thing, if he refuses to explain anything about it and demands that anyone using it should read the entire source, well, then he's an asshole programmer.
(Score: 2) by Post-Nihilist on Friday December 04 2015, @01:35AM
I agree that an API should stand on it's own . However, I find it usually faster to become proefficient with an API by looking at how a functionality is used by the library implementing it or the project that spawn it than reading the documentation, particularly when an implicit protocol is present ( C-based object orientation, in the case of EFL )
Be like us, be different, be a nihilist!!!
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Friday December 04 2015, @01:44AM
I find it usually faster to become proefficient with an API by looking at how a functionality is used by the library implementing it or the project that spawn it than reading the documentation
that's fine but not everyone is like you.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 02 2015, @02:49PM
You know, there's nothing inherently "wrong" with assholes. Mostly, I don't give a damn if someone is an asshole. Maybe it depends on what kind of an asshole he is. I think Bill Gates is an asshole, but I also think he's an a unethical SOB, so I don't use his software. There are people who think Linus Torvalds is an asshole. Ehhh - if so, he's a very useful and endearing kind of asshole. I use his software all the time. Being an asshole is alright - and it has almost nothing to do with the quality of a person's work.
Is rasterman an asshole? I don't care if he is - he does useful work, and he's never said or done anything that bothers me. Being an asshole is pretty much irrelevant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2015, @08:25PM
In Jeff Hoogland's page that introduces his E17 fork, he indicates that the Enlightenment development team creates, loses interest in what they created, and moves on to The Next Big Thing.
I have heard similar complaints about rasterman previously.
It seems that he gets bored easily and quickly stops supporting previous efforts.
What is lacking is someone on the core team who revels in responding to users and polishing the "old" (current) version as the rest of the team moves on to the alpha|beta|RC builds of the successor.
My take on this:
Not being a glamorous job, it's difficult to find someone who is interested.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday December 02 2015, @03:46PM
The supposedly experienced C programmer criticizing the api must have looked only at the headers
Why is that a surprise? Headers are where C APIs live. If you have to look at the implementation to understand the interface, then you have a poor API.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by mrchew1982 on Wednesday December 02 2015, @07:40AM
I really liked enlightenment when I tried it way back in the e12(?) days... Very snappy and simply gorgeous. Unfortunately I had hacked it in on top of a fedora install and never did get things running well enough to be completely satisfied with it. It seemed light on native applications too, which force me back to kde. Been tempted to give bohdi a try, but I'm afraid that I've fallen way too deep into the thrall of Android to ever escape.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2015, @07:51AM
You're doing it wrong.
"Enlightenment includes functions to provide a graphical shell, and it can be used in conjunction with programs written for GNOME or KDE." - Wikipedia.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 02 2015, @03:04PM
I'm a latecomer to Enlightenment. E16 through E19, and I'll probably upgrade real soon to E20.
Native aplications? They're nice, where they exist, but you gotta realize that just about anything that can run in *nix land will run on an E desktop. Or, actually, I didn't even say that precisely enough: E is not a "desktop" per se, but a "window manager". E is my full time "environment". My second choice would be Mate, with the other lighter weight desktops tying for third.
When I want to fire up an application, I don't worry whether it's a G, a K, an X, an E, or even a generic app without any affiliations. I choose applications by personal preference for how the app runs.
(Score: 3, Informative) by jimtheowl on Wednesday December 02 2015, @05:02AM
https://www.enlightenment.org/ [enlightenment.org]
http://wayland.freedesktop.org/ [freedesktop.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2015, @05:31AM
There are 2 distros that I know of that were developed around the Enlightenment desktop environment.
Elive started out as payware and has since become a gratis, community-driven project.
Bodhi (Sanskrit for "Enlightenment") is another.
Last Spring, Jeff Hoogland, chief developer of Bodhi Linux, became disenchanted with the Enlightenment developers' choices and their lack of responsiveness to feedback.
He then forked E17.
Introducing the Moksha Desktop [bodhilinux.com]
So, if you like the notion of Enlightenment but the new release doesn't butter your biscuit, there's something else for you to try.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday December 02 2015, @09:08AM
Void linux has also an E19 live desktop image, i guess it's going to get E20 soon.
It's preconfigured but installing needs a couple manual passages (IIRC there was no user account, only root in sh)
I liked it but I didn't like the file manager.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 02 2015, @03:21PM
Yeah, that default file manager really isn't much use. What's it even called? "Enlightenment File Manager". There's not even a name on the window!
I find myself using PCManFM most of the time, unless I want a Norton Commander clone, then I use MC.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Wednesday December 02 2015, @09:35AM
Hmm, I was wondering why I like the latest Bodhi. None of the earlier problems with Enlightenment crashing, demons of the Avici hells escaping onto the desktop, hands being chewed off, and having to press and hold the power button with my nose. None of those problems.
(Score: 3, Informative) by zafiro17 on Wednesday December 02 2015, @09:48AM
Bodhi user here - it's my current distro, and I used it extensively on a little netbook from 2008-2013, give or take (can't remember when I started, but I ended when the hardware died). Bodhi is a good little distro, and Moksha - basically E17 is very usable. I prefer KDE over Gnome but lately can't get KDE to run well on any of my hardware, and I just don't like Gnome. Moksha gives me what I need: multiple desktops, traditional taskbar, a good Application menu, and above all, the excellent "Run Anything" (like Quicksilver on Mac or Alt-F2 but far, far better). I don't need much more in a desktop, and it's far lighter than the other big desktops (but not as light as LXDE). It's got enough eye candy to be gorgeous without going crazy and entering the world of "eye candy for the sake of eye candy, i.e. wobbly windows").
Highly recommended.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2015, @12:39PM
but if the window is not wobbly, how do you know it's a real object?
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday December 02 2015, @11:38PM
Enlightenment is buggy on Debian and it's derivatives (Ubuntu and so on...) since the EFL is being developed on Arch linux and is constantly depended on the latest kernel, xserver, wayland, systemd, pulseaudio and so on...
By the way, most of the non-affiliated (with Red Hat / Debian / Ubuntu) linux development is currently being carried out using Arch linux. I'll spare you the politics and bad blood and just say that the AUR lets developers circumvent distribution packagers and release on their own development schedule rather than the distribution's.
There's also a case to be made regarding the ineffectiveness of backporting security patches in the kernel but that argument is getting right up there with "Think of the Children!" so I'll just drop the subject altogether.
Personally, I use Terminology, i3 and Firefox.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2015, @05:58AM
Their web page links to
* go-ogle
* failbook
* pay-palscam
*hurl*
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Wednesday December 02 2015, @08:05AM
One of the cool things about the Linux world is the choice we have in desktop environments. That said, it's a bit crazy. Unity, Cinnamon, Trinity, KDE, Mate, ... the list goes on forever. Many of these seem incredibly similar to each other; they only exist separately because they came from different roots.
In particular, there are an awful lot of desktop environments that just want to cut out the crap and let people work, more-or-less Gnome-2 style. And a lot of us want exactly that. Personally, I use Xubuntu or Mint/cinnamon, because I just want to get work done. Which brings me to the problem: I have no time to experiment with the other 20 million desktops out there, but...what if one of them is even simpler/better?
Does anyone have recommendations for a guide to the jungle?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 02 2015, @09:49AM
LXDE should be exceedingly familiar and a good bit snappier than xfce. Granted part of that snappiness comes from laying over top of openbox wm, which does require textfile configuration on occasion.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by http on Wednesday December 02 2015, @10:47AM
Recommended: e16. Still maintained by Kim Woelders, it is the spire of light coming up from the pyramid in the middle of the jungle.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 02 2015, @03:32PM
We creatures of the night don't do spires of light. Night bling is as bright as I want to get. ;^)
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Wednesday December 02 2015, @04:25PM
Switch your desktop environment to LXDE but instead of OpenBox switch the windowmanager to StumpWM. Install Anki flashcards.. do this on your computer and your phone. Use your computer to enter all the Stump keystrokes into an Anki deck. Use your phone to study the deck. It will take a little time but in the end it is all worth it.
Don't even bother with the other 19-some million options. They all suck in comparison.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2015, @04:01PM
I tried it last year, it totally borked my Ubuntu Gnome installation. Purging it left so many problems that I ended up starting over.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday December 02 2015, @05:54PM
I've really become a fan of i3wm: with my dual screens, i can do what i need to do quickly and in an organized fashion.
Haven't tried enlightenment lately, but found it was 'odd': quick, but glitchy and got frustrated quickly.
i3wm took some getting used to (learning curve), but now it's great to use: and it keeps people out of my things... no one can figure out how to use it, lol.
Usually i start with 'alt-Tab' to open a terminal, then open 'guake &'.
Then i exit the terminal and use guake to open all my programs (palemoon &, cvlc blah & ('alt'+'shift'+2: to move my movie to my bigger second monitor), etc &).
New big fan! :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday December 02 2015, @10:16PM
You configured a keyboard shortcut to run a terminal to run guake to run... WTF?! Here, throw this into your ~/.i3/config:
# the start button
set $WIN Mod4
#j4-dmenu-desktop binded to start+d:
bindsym $WIN+d exec --no-startup-id j4-dmenu-desktop --dmenu="dmenu -i -b -fn '-*-fixed-*-*-normal-*--*-*-*-*-*-*-8'" --term="terminology"
# dmenu binded to shift+start+d
bindsym $WIN+Shift+d exec dmenu_run -b -fn '-*-fixed-*-*-normal-*--*-*-*-*-*-*-8'
#https://github.com/enkore/j4-dmenu-desktop (mandatory since dmenu is horribly slow on it's own.)
#https://www.enlightenment.org/about-terminology (say what you will about Enlightenment, but the EFL based Terminology is the best terminal emulator around.).
#IF you insist you can just bind guake instead of j4-dmenu-desktop but I honestly don't know why you'd even bother.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday December 03 2015, @01:58AM
A bit harsh, but thanks, you pointed me in the right direction (what you wrote threw error messages, but even that was informative...):
I just added
bindsym $mod+g exec guake
and all is good.
Thanks again (new to i3, but enjoying it: AND learned something new, so yes... thanks!)
Will explore the other options in config!
Will have to look up what j4-demenu-desktop is... not installed on my system.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---