Enlightenment

Enlightenment is Article description::an eye-candy, compositing and stacking [[window manager that is released under the permissive BSD License.]] It was first released in 1997 by Carsten Haitzler (Rasterman) and this original release was dubbed Enlightenment DR16 (or E16 for short). In 2012 a new version of Enlightenment was released, which was called Enlightenment DR17 (or E17). Since then many further major releases of Enlightenment have been made: E18, E19, E20, E21 and E22. E20, E21 and E22 are all presently in the Portage Tree.

There has been some confusion over Enlightenment versions. E16, despite being an older release of Enlightenment, has its releases numbered 1.x, while the later releases of Enlightenment (E17-E22) all have decimal release numbers. E17 is numbered 0.17.x, E18 is numbered 0.18.x, E19 is numbered 0.19.x while E20 is numbered 0.20.x and so on. Consequently, it is advised that users are careful as to which version of Enlightenment they are installing. While the version numbers reflect actual versions of the upstream tar archives, they can be confusing.

USE flags
All wayland-related modules should be either disabled or enabled, depending on your  USE flag status.

For a working Enlightenment installation, USE flags with EFL are important.

Latest Enlightenment
For installing the latest Enlightenment WM and the needed libraries, just issue the following command:

For SVG support e.g. for previews or menu entries, you can additionally install dev-libs/efl with the  USE flag enabled.

Addition to (unless you already have the   USE flag globally enabled) and install the package:

Enabling at least these USE flags for efl is recommended when running Enlightenment:

Stable Enlightenment
Because upstream only provides support for the latest Enlightenment, Gentoo will try to follow upstream's release cycles closely. If you prefer older releases of Enlightenment WM, you might have to set up a local overlay to store ebuilds for x11-wm/enlightenment and dev-libs/efl. You can find all the older ebuilds by utilizing Git history.

On stable systems, to get the latest stable version, type

You can utilize to block incoming updates.

Enlightenment live ebuilds
The process is a little different because it's recommended to always rebuild all of the components using their current state in Git. Make sure you have installed Layman or Eselect/Repository. Now you can add the enlightenment-live overlay.

or

Make sure to install all core enlightenment packages using live ebuilds. You can update using the exact same command to ensure that all core packages are updated.

The overlay contains masked package even for latest stable enlightenment releases.

Be aware that they are currently masked for ~amd64, so you need to unmask them.

If anything goes wrong, file a ticket on GitHub or contact User:Rafspiny. Those are live ebuilds and therefore they can occasionally need updating. I'm also considering starting a separate overlay just for Enlightenment, let me know if that would help you.

Enlightenment e16
Old Enlightenment-e16 is still maintained. It was removed from Gentoo's portage tree because it caused a lot of confusion and made later Enlightenment releases harder to handle due to wrongly slotted packages. You can install e16 from e16-overlay. Please report any issues you find with e16 to the maintainer of that overlay via Github issues.

Enlightenment
Enlightenment's configuration is all handled through the settings editor from within enlightenment. You can access some "under-the-hood" config options with

And there's also a command line tool called  which especially useful in emergency. In many cases, if your Enlightenment's configuration gets broken, moving and  to a temporary place, then re-starting Enlightenment usually helps.

Adding Gadgets to desktop
Open up menu and navigate to "Desktop -> Add Gadgets".

Disabling desktop application icons
The option to disable application icons in desktop is a bit hidden. Open Settings Panel then go to "Files" tab, navigate to "File Manager -> Display" and uncheck "Icons On Desktop".

Using 'bryce' instead of old-fashioned panel
With recent versions, users can opt to use experimental new "bryce" instead of old panel. Open desktop menu menu and navigate to "Desktop -> Add Bryce". Bryces are experimental in Enlightenment's versions below 0.23.

Wayland session
Easiest way to start a wayland session is to use a wayland-compliant login manager, like GDM or SDDM. Wayland session can be started from TTY also, by exporting

where ECORE_EVAS_ENGINE is set to wayland_egl or wayland_shm depending on whether you wish to use the SHM based software rendering or EGL.

When using software rendering, also export ELM_ACCEL=none.

EFL-based applications
EFL and python-efl offer developers everything needed to develop eye-candy applications that integrate into Enlightenment WM. Here are few of them,


 * net-misc/econnman ConnMan User Interface for Enlightenment
 * media-gfx/ephoto Enlightenment image viewer written with EFL
 * sys-process/evisum System and process monitor written with EFL
 * x11-misc/enlightenment-extra An app for downloading themes and add-ons to Enlightenment WM
 * x11-terms/terminology Feature rich terminal emulator
 * x11-themes/e-gtk-theme A GTK theme to match Enlightenment WM's default theme

Applications requiring system tray not working properly
Older applications still using xembed systray instead of appindicator may not work properly (Dropbox for example). Solution is to install a stand-alone system tray program, such as stalonetray.

Black window contents
If you get windows with completely black contents (most likely with the nvidia proprietary driver and Enlightenment 0.20.5 or 0.20.6), follow these steps:
 * log out from Xorg.
 * set E_COMP_ENGINE=sw, for example in .xinitrc:

Alternatively, you can set the variable in /etc/environment.
 * start X.
 * Go to Settings->Composite->Advanced->Rendering and disable "Texture from pixmap".
 * Then you can remove "export E_COMP_ENGINE=sw" from .xinitrc and log out/in to get accelerated rendering again.

For more information see this bug report.

"build error: undefined symbol: _EFL_GFX_PATH_CHANGED"
An unfortunate build error that's caused by existing libraries. There is usually a more detailed error, like: "/usr/lib64/libector.so.1: undefined symbol: _EFL_GFX_PATH_CHANGED". In this case, remove any existing installation of dev-libs/efl and the offending library.

See more in #651890.

Debugging
If you've tried to move your config files away and Enlightenment still doesn't work, you can debug the problem by typing

and reading the log file. It is useful when making a bug report to bugs.gentoo.org or upstream's Phabricator. If the log file doesn't imply clear errors, you might have to install and run it it with debugging tools like gdb, strace or valgrind.

"No opengl engines found" with nvidia-drivers
With latest releases of mesa and xorg-1.20, efl can look for from a wrong place. This results in Enlightenment's gl-engine not using opengl backend. This can be fixed with patchelf utility.

Identify where your is installed, usually. Then use patchelf to modify efl's gl engine,

And relog. Paths depend on your architechture. This needs to be done once, or everytime efl is re-installed.

External resources

 * E Window Manager Faq
 * GTK Theme to match the new dark default theme
 * Homepage
 * Wikipedia article
 * Arch linux Wiki page
 * Sending patches upstream