Comments on: E17 as a Desktop — don’t try this at home!

By: valczir

valczir — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 00:36:40 +0000

Aaaaaand I just realized how old this post is. Yay for doing stuff while you’re eating.

I suppose, e17 did have a few issues way back then. I started using it regularly right around 2006-2007. From what I remember, my post was still somewhat valid way back then. It’s just way more valid now.

By: valczir

valczir — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 00:32:49 +0000

Best file manager on linux: bash.
Best text editor on linux: emacs (or vim).
Best tabbed browser on linux: iceweasel/opera/rekonq (depends on preference)

e17 works for a lot of people, and not just because it’s lighter than KDE/GNOME. It deals with multiple monitors better (twinview + e17 FTW), defaults to sane window focus (focus under mouse, and none of that dumb click to raise business), has better modules for removable devices (seriously, e17′s ‘places’ module makes everything else look like a dirty hack), and doesn’t require you to have a bar. Oh, and it doesn’t have those awful boxes showing up everywhere from inotify.

If you want your UI to be in your face about every little thing, then sure, KDE is great. If you want your UI to lay silently in the background and only do stuff when you explicitely ask it to, e17 is the equivalent of perfection.

Yes, I’m using amarok in e17. Yes, I know it carries most of the KDE libs with it. No, I don’t care. e17′s interface does exactly what I want it to do and looks good doing it.

Also, if you have trouble compiling from source, it’s likely your (or your distro’s) fault. I run gentoo, which means that I’m compiling everything from source, and I have fewer problems with e17′s svn tree than I do with KDE’s stable packages. e17 almost always compiles without a single error, whereas it seems like KDE gives me all kinds of errors even when I’m just trying to update it.

By: widgeteye

widgeteye — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:11:31 +0000

2009: It’s extremely fast. OPens apps faster than icewm and I have been using icewm for years. I have switched to E17. It’s a kicker.

By: ZeriouS

ZeriouS — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 03:30:03 +0000

Maybe I’ll show my girls next time e17 instead of fluxbox =D

By: ZeriouS

ZeriouS — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 03:25:59 +0000

You are so damn right. e17 is fast, but as soon as you need to use gnome or kde apps… the related libraries for apps, such as Amarok are loaded. Besides of that, the other applications, which can be run inside of e17 and are not native, destroy the flow and visual beauty of the total desktop design!

By: vr

vr — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 14:26:29 +0000

I am using e17 for about a year as the only GUI environment on my Arch Linux laptop. I build the it several times from CVS and it is a lottery although it’s getting better. I just made scripts to pull it from CVS and build it in correct order.
There is more to e17 that is not mentioned in this review .
First – modules. They are not apps but they are part of the system and should be considered here. I used extensively Mixer (to adjust the volume) and Battery meter (because it’s laptop). And of course, clock. There are modules that I don’t use as they are more of distraction – e.g. RSS feeds that scrolls over part of the desktop. And there was one that would pops photos in different parts of screen – very neat but I have work to do.
Second – all the GUI can be managed from command line , although I am not an expert on that. Still cannot make enterminus to use bigger fonts and disable shadows.
And one more thing about e17 – it’s the only desktop environment I know that can run without X server, straight in directfb, although I didn’t compile it that way.

By: Rob

Rob — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 02:13:15 +0000

I think that e17 when used with xubuntu is the most stable and easy for use. I have tried e17 on several distros such as ubuntu, xubuntu, debian… The statment the author makes about “usless” is uncalled for. My wife has been a windows only user for ever, when I introduced her to e17 on xubuntu she was sold. She uses it for everything and more than that, on an old laptop with only 1.2ghz celleron, 20g hd 756ram. It is very lightweight and operates faster than any other window manager we have tried. If you just follow the directions on the official ubuntu/xubuntu website it will give you a step by step how to and it works great, not perfect but great. Name one perfect window manager or os and I will try it otherwise this is fun and useable.

By: wam

wam — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 23:59:19 +0000

e17 is definitely a window manager of choice yet unfinished. I’ve been using it for more than one year now and didn’t see much improvement though, compared to the first version that where great already.

We still need a systray, but trayer does a good replacement work. Same for the file browser, I keep using nautilus so far.

Repositories are available for some disto, at least Ubuntu and Debian (in both 32 and 64 bits) whivh makes it easier than it used to be. It can also be interesting to try out elive, even if I don’t really agree with the list of applications installed by default.