While I remember this there’s a GTK2 theme for DR17 that fits in with grey/gold look of the default theme.
Things are starting to come together.
Archive for the 'Linux' Category
Want to try Enlightenment DR17? Of course you do. Don’t want to install all those bits and pieces and then find it’s not for you? Now you don’t have to.
Elivecd is a cd based version along the lines of knoppix and it’s variants but the only window managers available this time are Enlightenment DR16 and DR17.
There’s a review of Elivecd over at Flavios Techo Talk although I’m not sure how involved the author is with Enlightenment, if at all, so I’ll leave it up to you to decide how biased it is.
Certainly worth keeping an eye on and with cd based distros being used nowdays as rescue disks this may well be a good way of working within a familiar environment if the need arises.
via Edevelop.org
Finally got around to installing Enlightenment DR17 a couple of days back. I have to say that screenshots really don’t do it justice. You see it in action to appreciate the little bits of eye candy that happens as you move about the desktop. Windows have drop shadows generated by enlightenment itself without intervention from the X server.
It’s not all looks though as windows open very fast, on par with any of the *box series of window managers by my estimates. I haven’t really delved into configuration yet as I want to play around with it before I break it. Everything is kept in .e as opposed to .enlightenment so both DR16 and 17 can be run on the same machine.
I won’t bother with screenshots as there’s not much to see theme wise at the moment but have a look at get-e.org for documentation and a few themes if you’re interested.
I’ve also restarted my GTK2 theming experiments, attempting to apply styles to individual widgets instead of the ubiqutous “*”. The problem with using a catch-all is that everything gets the style applied to it (kind of obvious really but I said it anyway), including buttons and input boxes on web pages and as I want a dark theme this clashes with the lighter colours of a lot of websites. Trying to find which GTK widgets apply the colour styles to these elements has proves a bit of a pain so far.
To think, I do this sort of thing for fun.
Hot off the press (or #edevelop as it’s otherwise known) is this nice little screenshot of the current Enlightenment DR17 build.
Your all jealous now aren’t you. Thanks to Codewarrior on #edevelop for the screenshot.
Got hold of a copy of Slackware 10 yesterday so I’ve been busy setting that up. If I really knew what I was doing I’d have home set up on a different partition so I didn’t have to copy all my config files over each time but as I said…if I really knew what I was doing…
Best bit so far? It’s a bit sad but when my monitor is blanked the XOrg version of X starts instantly. It was always annoying how it’d have to move the mouse around and hit keys repeatedly before X would respond. This is a good thing. Small but good. Also font’s are looking spiffy in most things. We like spiffy here at monki towers.
The fact that I’m running all these new things means I’ll finally be able to try those programs that refused to work before. I’m a comin’ for ya Skippy, ya hear me now!
Expect anguished posts over the next few days as I break things.
Why do people insist on using the “Granny test” when arguing if Linux is ” desktop ready”. I’m not refering to any particular piece of writing or site but I have to say I find the notion a little bizzare.
The PC as it stands is not a microwave, tv or other household appliance. Maybe in the future it’ll be seen like that but currently it’s not and that’s important. Firmware doesn’t get upgraded on household appliances and they generally have a single basic use unlike a PC. Has anyone in a marketing dept ever said “Take some of these buttons off the remote otherwise it’ll confuse grannies and aunts”? Didn’t think so. Hell, I use Linux, PHP, ASP and built my own machine. Can I manually program the video recorder? Can I fuck!
Some Linux distros can be difficult to install but then so can Windows. No, really. You give someone new to computing a Windows cd and tell them to install it. It should be easy but they won’t be able to do it alone because they’ve never done it before and will need reasurance. The obvious point here is that they don’t need to learn how because most new Pc’s come with Windows pre-installed. Granny will certainly never need to learn how to install Windows will she?
Unified Desktop? You show me any electrical equipment that has the same looking buttons in the same place across different models let alone makes. Granny uses something until it breaks down so she buys a new one. Are you telling me she’ll never use it because the buttons are different? No, she’ll adapt like the rest of us. If granny has never used a PC then she has no preconceptions otherwise use Gnome or KDE if she’s more comfortable with “bar” styles. There are ways to hide all that “confusing” text at startup as well.
There will never be a bell that goes off that says “Ding! Linux is desktop ready”. It’s the general public who’ll decide if it’s ready. We’ll only realise it after the event. Getting it onto machines that people will buy is the problem here not how they use it.
From the Slackware ChangeLog:
Tue Jun 15 18:30:11 PDT 2004
This is Slackware 10.0 release candidate 1.
I’d better start backing up then.
Finally got round to installing the e17 libraries (Enlightenment Foundation Libraries) over the weekend which, contrary to the title was fairly easy. It just took a while but then we are talking about ./autogen.sh make & & make install x 17 here. It only tripped up running make on Epsilon. I was a little concerned about asking questions about CVS code on #edevelop after reading the warning but it turned out fine and a fix was submitted to CVS as I was chatting to the devs. Now that’s service!
Unfortuantely the reason for me installing the libraries in the first place didn’t work out so well. Evidence is the new(ish) file manager for DR17 so I thought I’d give it a go but while it seems to make ok something fails when installing it which means the icon view doesn’t work, which is a shame as that’s the main reason I wanted to try it. I could try the RPM’s but things rarely go right when combining Slackware and the RPM utility.
Guess it’s time to give Engage a go now i’ve got the libraries installed.
One of my favourite bits of linux software was updated on friday. ROX Filer is a great little file manager and works very well with enlightenment as well as the more minimal window managers. While it probably wouldn’t get used with KDE or Gnome I’m sure it would fit in just fine. The only real dependecies are GTK2, which isn’t really a dependency unless you don’t have Gnome installed, and lets face it, who wouldn’t install Gnome :)
Enlightenment now has it’s own OSX style dock for people to play with. I’m not sure who wrote it but you can find a video demo of Engage at Xcomputerman while the soure is downloadable from the files section of the same site. The mpeg didn’t work too well on my Windows machine but you’ll also find screenshots of Engage there as well.
It needs a couple of E17 core libraries to work if I recall from the readme and is something I’ll get round to installing in the near future.
One of the good things about docks, assuming they allow you to add icons, is that they can be a substitute for desktop icons. Most window managers don’t have the ability to put icons onto the desktop. It’s not their job. This may be a way round it though, and it’s always nice to have options.
I also stumbled across a linux screenshot site the other day. Lynucs.org has screenshots of various windowmanagers, app and other bits and pieces and being the sucker for eye candy that I am thought it was great. In some ways it’s the site I always wanted monkiboi dot net to be but just never got there. Did it actually start?
Spent most of last week playing around with software. For a while now I’ve been meaning to try gtk-chtheme which allows you to change gtk2 themes without calling the gnome control centre (center :) ) up each time. There was also the problem of it not applying fonts properly. This little app works very well and only needs a make and make install.
I hadn’t realised that Pixelmasochists “Phlat” theme for DR16 was available for download. It’s a great theme, grey enough to not get in the way while having little bits to keep the interest. It’s not eyecandy in the way 23oz Glass is but then I found that theme was a little too much after a while.
After some thought I decided to install Evidence which turns out to need a large number of libraries, none of them available as slackpacks. I guess I’ll get around to it when I get there.
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