Enlightenment

Enlightenment is an eye-candy 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 three further major releases of Enlightenment have been made: E18, E19 and E20. E16, E17, E18 and E19 are all presently in the Portage Tree, although E20 is yet to be added to 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-E20) 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. 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.

Enlightenment 0.17
For installing Enlightenment and the needed libraries, just issue the following command:

For SVG support e.g. for previews or menu entries, you can additionally install evas_generic_loaders with the  USE flag enabled.

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

Enlightenment 0.18
At the time of writing, you need to install E18 from testing.

Enlightenment 0.19
At the time of writing, you need to install E19 from testing.

Enlightenment live ebuilds (future 0.20 release)
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. Now you can add the enlightenment-live overlay.

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. Specifically:
 * EFL 1.18.1
 * Enlightenment 0.21.2

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
Enlightenment's configuration is all handled through the settings editor from within enlightenment. There's also a command line tool called, especially useful in emergency.

Tips and tricks
Now one can start Enlightenment desktop environment by launching the default Display Manager (DM).

You may have to add an entry to your X sessions directory, if you use SLiM for example

Or else, opt for a DM free set up. See X without Display Manager for more info on starting a X Session without a DM.

And do not forget to install NetworkManager and or else a light weight network manager like Dhcpcd+Dhcpcd-ui or even  for which there is an Enlightenment applet.

Multi-layout keyboard
For using a multi layout keyboard, install this package:



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.

External resources

 * GTK Theme to match the new dark default theme
 * Homepage
 * Wikipedia article