Install Enlightenment E17 in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic koala

Written by Zinovsky | 31 January 2010
Posted in Linux tutorials - Linux tutorials

Enlightenment, also known simply as E, is a stacking window manager for the X Window System which can be used alone or in conjunction with a desktop environment such as GNOME or KDE. Enlightenment is also a whole suite of libraries to help you create beautiful user interfaces with much less work than doing it the old fashioned way and fighting with traditional toolkits, not to mention a traditional window manager. It covers uses from small mobile devices like phones all the way to powerful multi-core desktops.

The latest stable version of Enlightenmen is E16. The actual development Release 17 of the Enlightenment window manager represents an evolution into the next generation of desktop environments:

The desktop shell. DR17 will provide integration between files and your environment in a seamless manner while encompassing a graphically rich and flexible architecture. It will not compete with GNOME or KDE, but be a completely new way of visualizing your desktop, based around the EFL which was built from the ground up for this task.”

Install Enlightenment on Ubuntu

1- Add repositories :

a- First open the sources.list and add the repositories :

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

For Ubuntu 9.10 karmic koala :

Add this line at the end of the sources.list

deb http://packages.enlightenment.org/ubuntu karmic main extras

There is another repository for karmic but doesen`t contain the e17 package yet(I tried to install e17 and i get just the message no package was found), if you want to install e16 version on ubuntu karmic you can use this ppa :

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:e17-packaging/ppa

For Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty jackalope :

add these 2 lines to the end of the list :

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/e17-packaging/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/e17-packaging/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

2- Add the verification Key :

wget http://packages.enlightenment.org/repo.key -O - | sudo apt-key add -

3- Now refresh and install :

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install e17  xorg

Install software (Thanks to kappa962):

sudo apt-get install  wicd lxterminal gnome-icon-theme mousepad emodule-places emodule-tclock

emodule-calendar unrar rar xarchiver gpicview

sudo apt-get install firefox thunar vlc -R

xorg and e17 are, obviously, the essential packages for this installation.
Install ecomorph-e17 instead of e17 for the compiz eye candy.
wicd for network/wifi management. I would use exalt (package name:emodule-exalt), but I can't get it to work. At all.
lxterminal as a lightweight terminal program that is significantly better than xterm
mousepad : Is for a full-featured, lightweight text editor. scite and Leafpad are two other options
gnome-icon-theme : Is necesary in order for the icons in the menus and in Thunar to look right.
xarchiver is a nice, lightweight program for working with compressed files; rar and unrar are needed for it to work properly
gpicview is a nice, lightweight picture viewer
emodule-places, emodule-tclock, and emodule-calendar are just three extra emodules that I really like to use.
The -R option is important for Firefox. Otherwise it installs piles and piles of gnome-related packages. Another,
thunar is my choice for a full-featured, lightweight file manager
vlc is, of course, the standard linux media player

Modify this list to suit your needs. Other packages you might want to install:
abiword: lightweight word processor. It's still a pretty bulky program, so consider using the -R option with aptitude, which will cut the installed size in half.
galculator: basic calculator program.