Enlightenment On Ubuntu

One of the Window Managers that stands out the most in the Linux world, is the Enlightenment Manager. Many refer to is as the E desktop, because typing out the whole word can take some time.

I remember using this window manager back in the ’90s and was very impressed by the eye-candy and functionality that came with it. Although Enlightenment didn’t catch on as much as KDE or Gnome, many Linux users use the term, a terminal originally built for the Enlightenment desktop, to spice up their computers. Eterm had extra features such as transparent background, that many users found enjoyable.

Currently, Enlightenment has blossomed, and now holds many new features, that enriches the Linux experience. Some of these new features include: scene-graph rendering with a canvas, theme encapsulation, compiling and demand-loading, event loop, inter-process communication, freedesktop.org specification handling, virtual machines, video codec abstractions, widget sets, and more.

Here are some pictures of Enlightenment in action:

The following guide is based on Timmy’s howto found here.

To Start:

We need all of the required packages and libraries:

Step 1:

Open up a terminal, and copy/paste the following line in (Make sure you have the privileges to do this):

Step 2:

A script exists on the internet that makes the downloading process of enlightenment e-17 way easier. Morlenxus created it, and he did a great job. To download the script, type in:

You can do this from your home directory, or from any other directory where you have privileges.

Step 3:

Now that you have the script, you will have to make it executable. Simply type the following commands into the terminal:

Note: This script will require some time to run. Everything will be installed to/opt/e17 The author of the script did this so that this installation wouldn’t interfere with previously installed versions of enlightenment. If you would like to change where it automatically installs to, change the script files.

Step 4:

Create a desktop entry so that you can log in to enlightenment through the GDM.

Type the following into a shell:

Now, copy/paste the following into the newly created file:

Step 5:

Logout, then log back in selecting the e-17 session from the login screen.

Step 6:

Since the applications were all installed to /opt/e17, it’s a good idea to place it into your path. Type the following into a shell:

Now, add the following lines to the bottom of the file:

Now enlightenment should be installed.