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E17 — Desktop Enlightenment

[ Saturday, 3 March 2007, michuk ]

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The performance of desktop computers increases year by year. This gives the programmers great opportunities to further improve the desktop experience of the users. However, what should you do when you have an old computer that is not capable of running the latest and hottest software? How can you benefit from the great software that is X.org when you can't run a desktop that takes advantage of its best features? No need for upgrading your PC, when you can have a usable alternative with the current one. Let me introduce you Enlightenment E17 — the window manager with minimal hardware requirements that may amaze you.

Author: Tomasz Roszak

Currently two desktops rule the GNU/Linux world: GNOME and KDE. Both require modern hardware but offer a lot of functions instead. Fortunately, programmers of both popular environments after a period of increasing requirements with each release started to work on optimization. The effects can be easily noticed when you compare GNOME in version 2.14 (or later) with the earlier ones in the 2 series. There have been many articles already about getting the most of the popular desktop environments.

However, what should you do when you have an old computer that is not capable of running the latest hottest software? How can you benefit from the great software that X.org is when you can't run a desktop that takes advantage of its best features?
No need to upgrading your PC, when you can have a usable alternative with the current one.

X.org enables you to use any graphical user interface you like in GNU/Linux, BSD and compatible systems. You are certainly not restricted to choosing the most popular ones like KDE or GNOME. Other environments can also provide you with a great desktop experience without sacrificing as much system resources. They enable you to personalize your desktop, choose the best wallpaper, icon set, widgets and applets in order to make your desktop your second home. So, do you want a pleasant and good looking desktop with a lot of eye-candy, but fast and efficient at the same time? Let me introduce you with Enlightenment E17 — the window manager with minimal hardware requirements that may amaze you.

Enlightenment — the basics

Enlightenment has something to do with the light. It is a window manager that comes with special effects. When you first run it you usually feel strange — its looks do not resemble anything that you have ever seen on the desktop before. The toolbar, the icons, the analog clock… all this is simply amazing. You either love it at the first sight or hate it for the eye-candy you can't stand.

But… let's start from the beginning.

Read More...
http://polishlinux.org/apps/window-managers/e17-desktop-enlightenment/