E17

The purpose of this article is to guide you through the emerge and maintenance of an Enlightenment 0.17 setup.

Quote from http://enlightenment.org/

''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.''

There are two major versions of Enlightenment, Enlightenment 0.16 (x11-wm/enlightenment) and Enlightenment 0.17. You should note that E17, DR17(Development Release) and plain E are references to Enlightenment 0.17, these are commonly used in the Enlightenment community and throughout this article.

Stable Enlightenment 0.17
A stable version of Enlightenment-0.17 has been released and is already in portage. To install it, run the following command. It will pull in all the necessary dependencies.

If you intend to install the current development version, then proceed with the rest of this article; otherwise you don't need to do anything else.

Overlays
needs to be properly configured for using overlays. See the layman section of the Overlays article if you're unsure of this.

Enlightenment Overlay
The Enlightenment ebuilds are available on Enlightenment Overlay so the first thing you should do is add the enlightenment overlay through layman. It's important to note that layman needs to be built with the subversion use flag for this to work!

niifaq Overlay
There is also an alternative overlay (called "niifaq" or "enlightenment-niifaq" in following), which is frequently synced with mainline, but still contains several features not (yet?) merged into mainline. It contains only live ebuilds currently. This overlay is not in layman's default list, but you still may add it via layman:

Just like portage, overlays need to be synchronised to keep up to date.

If this is your first overlay:

Keywords
Once the overlay is added you need to use the appropriate package.keywords. There are two package.keywords supplied with the enlightenment overlay; one for "live" source repository ebuilds(package.keywords.livecvs) and one for snapshot ebuilds(package.keywords.snapshots).

The easiest way to use these is to have a directory instead of the one regular file. Then symlink the appropriate package.keywords to ,

enlightenment
In the example below we use the "live" ebuilds from mainline overlay,

The "snapshot" keywords file resides in the same directory as package.keywords.livecvs.

In the older version of Layman the last command used to be

enlightenment-niifaq
For "niifaq" overlay there are such files too, but at another path:

In older versions of layman, the last command used to be be:

USE Flags
There are some USE flags that E17 needs to operate properly, such as display icons, wallpaper, et cetera. A as shown below will be adequate.

enlightenment-niifaq
"Niifaq" overlay is EAPI=2 compatible and in most cases will notify you about USE-flags needed. Also, you are not forced to specify 'exchange' to have conf_theme module (this is one of still unmerged features), but probably you want to, as it's very useful by its own.

enlightenment
The Portage feature of sets is practical to use when dealing with "live" ebuilds.

For mainline overlay you should create and add to

enlightenment-niifaq
Niifaq overlay already contains sets, which are documented inside overlay tree.

Emerge
Before you start your emerge of E17 you should check that everything is in order with the --pretend and --verbose options.

Check that the ebuilds have the USE flags you prefer enabled. If you feel that they do not, refer to the USE flags article for instructions on USE flag handling. At this step it's also a good idea to double check that the ebuilds are ending with -9999 if you are using the "live" package.keywords entries or -0.9.9.* if you are using the snapshot package.keywords entries, and said ebuilds should be emerged from overlay "/usr/local/portage/layman/enlightenment" (or enlightenment-niifaq, depending of what overlay you are using), if they are not, review the Preparation chapter again and look for typos and errors in your /etc/portage/package.keywords.

When you are satisfied with the results of emerge -pv, it's time for the actual emerge. To be on the safe side, you should emerge with the --ask option. Also, --keep-going option is highly recommended.

If emerge didn't halt due to broken code from the source repository, you should have successfully emerged E17. If emerge fails, you may wait about one day for code to get fixed, and try again the same emerge command.

enlightenment
If you've prepared a set for the live enlightenment ebuild, as explained in the previous section, you can emerge the set instead. This makes updating your Enlightenment install easier.

enlightenment-niifaq
For enlightenment-niifaq overlay you may choose between following setups:
 * only-wm version


 * wm + all e-modules:


 * wm + all e-modules + some programs considered especially useful


 * Or, you may ask portage to install every ebuild from overlay:

Updating
If you want to update your live install of Enlightenment, you will need to reemerge all the Enlightenment packages, not only x11-wm/enlightenment as live ebuild does not change the version. A simple,

will update Enlightenment and its required dependencies.

If emerge confuses the order of the emerge you can try the following

enlightenment
If you're using sets, all you need to do if you want to update is to reemerge the @enlightenment-live set.

enlightenment-niifaq
For "niifaq" overlay you may also use @enlightenment-rebuild, it will not try to emerge packages failed at initial merge, just reemerging every installed from overlay ebuild (including those, which was emerged manually)

Still, you may also use any other set from overlay to force installation of all failed last time packages, but be aware, that emerging static sets (i.e. all, except @enlightenment-all and @enlightenment-rebuild) will not rebuild dependencies.

If you want to update all live packages on your system (or want to include E17 packages that you have not defined to a part of the enlightenment set or have not created a set for enlightenment), reemerge all live packages with the help of the @live-rebuild set.

E Modules
The E modules(-*) are plugins that enables you to further customize E17. If you want to install all E17 modules, emerge the meta-package.

For "niifaq" overlay, there is a special set - @enlightenment-modules

Tiling
To enable tiling mode, you will need to emerge the plugin,

You will find the tiling options under Settings Panel -> Windows -> Tiling.

Compositing
To enable compositing mode, it is now included in the basic package and needs to be loaded via Settings -> Modules. The default compositing is done via software (that is without GPU acceleration), and can be changed to use opengl if ecore is compiled with the opengl useflag. If it is, the setting can be found in Settings Panel -> Look -> Composite.

"enlightenment-niifaq" overlay also contains x11-plugins/ecomorph ebuild, which are compiz-port for enlightenment-wm.

Only difference - you should start your wm using enlightenment_start.sh script supplied with ebuild. Maybe this restriction already removed: check author's page

Reporting bugs
Please, do not report bugs to the E-team. Send your bugreports to enlightenment@gentoo.org. This is an alisas for all at least somehow official developers. Developers of both "enlightenment" and "enlightenment-niifaq" reads it.

Please, if you are experiencing compile error - rebuild all ebuilds from overlay:
 * For portage version < 2.2 (require eix installed) (use "enlightenment-niifaq" after --in-overlay, if you are using this overlay):


 * For portage version >= 2.2*, enlightenment overlay:


 * For portage version >= 2.2*, enlightenment-niifaq overlay:

Also, you may use XMPP MUC (that is: jabber conference, not email): e17@conference.gentoo.ru - this is support room for enlightenment-niifaq overlay, but you may also report bugs on enlightenment overlay, as they are mostly common and fixes are synced. Main language is Russian, you may speak English, but be ready for not always grammatically valid answers ;)

~/.xinitrc
If you want E17 to start when you run or have it start when running a "Custom Xsession" through a graphical login manager you will need to configure your xsession script to execute ,

Make sure you read the Xsession instructions.

Desktop Menus & Icons
Enlightenment doesn't create all of the entries needed for the freedesktop XDG menus to automatically "Just Work&trade;". The easiest way to get menus working is to,

More information avaliable on Enlightenment's E17 and Efreet article. You can edit menus with or.

Toolkit Beautification
See Toolkit Beautification.

Entrance
See Entrance.