Not long ago (precisely on December 21), came out a new version of Enlightenment, E17, or rather, the 0.17. We may assume (or at least so I did the first time I heard of this window manager) is a project that practically new and in its infancy, but its previous version, the E16, was launched in 2000 and since then, has been developing the current.

Incidentally, the window manager origin dates back to 1997 with your version 16 (which give 15 years without a major version jump, something large by today’s standards) time before GNOME and KDE with their first versions. No talk more about history, I’ll tell you how it was my first experience with a window manager that never (or now) attracted me visually but should try sometime.

First, he had to choose how to test , so I took two paths: using Bodhi Linux, which has by default Enlightenment and probably very well integrated, and Archlinux that contrary, I would find that more raw desktop, which would force me to investigate a little more. From the above, I started my experimentation. It should be noted that, as an environment that is fairly light, I tried everything in a virtual machine with 512 MB of RAM and 16 MB of video.

guided configuration starts with a simple enough to meet comfort of your desk, as for example having a panel or not. Immediately after that brief setup, we enter an environment ready to use. Personally, I think the best option to test well what it is . Quite simply, we are counting on the last version of Enlightenment. In addition, its official wiki is very explanatory guides and tutorials with images on the features available.

Furthermore, in Archlinux, if we start from a clean install, we are having some problems in integrating all applications with the environment. Unlike GNOME, KDE or XFCE, Enlightenment packages do not depend on graphics libraries like Qt or GTK. So happens that applications look pretty poor at first, so need a little more work when tuning . You can see an example of what I mean by comparing the two images (the previous one and the one below).

Now, in terms of Enlightenment itself, I always found it ugly at first sight. Catches had seen detailed icons (such realistic one might say), abrupt gradient backgrounds, all very square but also little minimalist, etc. However, the latest version (do not know that the above also have brought) has a theme default that is the exception. Anyway, after the quota of subjectivity, we must see what Enlightenment really, I mean to use it. First detail I noticed is the flowing smoothly the animations : the typical cast for system startup and shutdown; animations pointer to click, resize the window, move, and but never more so grotesque.

Once inside

Enlightenment, the desk can be assembled in various ways to suit the user . First, the modules must be selected to use. Very important fact because I was wandering for a good minutes to be able to change the keyboard layout and language in the settings and it was that that module was not loaded. Also happens to be a very interesting feature because we can, in this way, without extra tools that are useful to us.

Then follow the configuration of containers that would come to be what other setting is called panels. inserting objects are often linked to a module , so I referred to them. It can be positioned on any edge or corner, alter their behavior in windows (which remains below or above), size, style, auto hide, show in any particular virtual desktop and even put a name to identify it. Personally, something I love to Enlightenment is the ability to custom; I dare say that outstrips that aspect KDE .

containers can insert content , pun intended. Among them we have the classic, you know, clocks, system tray, windows, and also own two of Enlightenment are IBar and Everything . The former is an application bar and the second a pretty interesting application launcher, you can say that is a very minimalist version of Unity dash without Amazon or internet access.

follow modules and extensions, also have two particular elements that bring quite popular desktops . The first is Engage , which is the classic dock Docky style. It seems to work very well considering that includes the classic animations. It is fully configurable and is under the Utilities category. On the other hand, there is also the module Mosaic for those who like the style of stacking windows dwm style. The latter have not tested it thoroughly but it looks quite comfortable to use but does not compare to window managers that handle precisely that. It is located in the core category.

Then follow the curiosities or nonsense that are useless but they are nice. I’m not much of that sort of thing but this is not the case. Turns out some penguins or Lemmings (choice) that are falling from the screen reminiscent of the classic game. In Bodhi apparently no longer comes by default but is easily installed with a sudo apt-get install penguins . Hence, do not forget, it loads the module and from the options panel accommodates the tastes. just a small example of one of the few officially available Extensions .

Now returning to useful applications, it is arguably the icing on the cake : Terminology. Any more terminal? No. In fact, you could earn a full article. It includes a few interesting features and quite attractive but also lightweight. Officially, say in displacement, is ten times faster than Gnome-terminal, and faster than Konsole Xterm and as fast as urxvt . And yet, it is a young project unfinished.

deeper features (with videos, etc.), I recommend their official site. Similarly, if there are things to highlight aesthetic level are two simple details: the elegance of its presentation with good color balance and a flashing cursor vividly, and underline color selection, all in ways that are easily readable, and the screen is painted red after a problem (for example, we type a word and press TAB and finds no match), but this is a bit annoying at times.

As for performance, everything seems to work fine. can tell it’s a very polished and focused on the details . Always kept consistent in terms of fluidity and animations overall system itself. An interesting point is that I found the ability to restart the environment without closing running applications. It is very useful to a hang of it or just to completely update the environment without having to login again.

not want to dwell much more with this article because could say much more about this particular window manager that is, today, more than a full desktop. It may not be for everyone but I think it deserves to be tested at least once. Personally, at first glance, I thought the best light environments; possibly LXDE is lighter still, I got to compare them, but aesthetic level has many details that I could put up with the biggest competition. Still, I maintain my opinion of my first paragraph with the difference that now I could appreciate and understand the many positive reviews on Enlightenment.