Enlightenment v16 - 1.0.25 for RISC-V 64

I’ve just finished my first run at building E16 .debs for the RISC-V 64bit architecture. They actually appear to run! I’ve been addicted to this WM since the early '00s. Its lighter than most light WMs. Its gorgeous when equipped with the right theme. Its lightning fast even with several hundred (literally) windows on the screen. It has capabilities that no other WM that I’ve used has. Many of those things I’ve come to rely on over the years.

NOTE: ‘e’ is somewhat weird in naming and versioning. This is not the current release of the new generation “Enlightenment” (E25). The Debian/Ubuntu repos have that. This is the latest release of the previous generation, which you can find @ SourceForge. The new generation still doesn’t have all of the features and its too much more in many ways… but I won’t digress. For more information there is a footnote of sorts on the Enlightenment site. And I won’t bore with any more history…

I could prattle on all day about why I use e16 but I have other things to do. I wanted share these packages, JIC anyone else is also an e16 fan. WMs are a very personal choice. e16’s spartan appearance isn’t for everyone. But the control is unparalleled.

NOTE: I said e16 is “gorgeous”, but the default theme that comes with e16, like that of its current generation off spring, is extremely boring. I have not packaged my theme collection yet. But I think a few themes can be found on that SourceForge link above. Many years ago there was an offshoot of FreshMeat.org for themes. I think it was something like “themes . org”. It had more Enlightenment themes than for any other environment. Unfortunately most of those are gone now. For those unfamiliar with FreshMeat: it later was renamed FreeCode.com and then they quit and the whole site was archived for posterity at SourceForge (the previous link).

WARN: Unlike most theming systems e16 themes are about more than looks, they also have a great deal to do with functionality. Due to the long time with which e16 has undergone changes and due to the theme author’s varying skills some themes can break e16, or at least portions of it. Kind of a bummer… because the alien heads (from the movie “alien”) in the “alien” theme were killer. :laughing:

So e16 may not be for the casual user. But we are running RISC-V here… so we’re apparently willing to take a risk. :laughing: I certainly need e16 on my DevTerm so I thought I’d share my .debs. Currently there are only two packages: binary & data. There are several more to build: epplet collection, key binding editor, menu editor, theme collection and docs. I think I may be the only one left with some of these theme files… ::sigh:: the good tech always dies. :crying_cat_face:

There are a few themes available at the SF link above in a single tar ball. I’ll have to poke through their various collections. Installing a theme is as simple as moving the theme folder into ~/.16/themes. Then selecting it from the theme menu. Don’t put spaces in the folder names.

The app menu is accessed by clicking the desktop. This was compiled from hacked Debian packaging so all of the Debian app menu should be there. The configuration and control menu is accessed by right-clicking the desktop. Not having dedicated screen space for the app menu was one of the things I loved leaving behind when I left windoze. With this little screen I really need to conserve screen space! But then again I usually don’t use the app menus either! I think I may end up turning off gkrellm for that reason. But I like its meters…

The built-in “tool tip” feature should be good to get you started. Then you can turn it off. It gets annoying quickly. Still it can be useful to learn about theme features too.

When e16 starts up it has a pretty cool “sliding open” animation. This, of course, doesn’t work too well on the RISC-V. So you will likely want to turn that off in the settings after the first start.

The tar balls can be downloaded from this link:

http://pkgs.yeolpishack.net/ChipMaster/tar/e16_1.0.25-1jfp_riscv64.tgz

Download the tarball, extract it. Then install the packages. Something like this should work:

cd
mkdir tmpdeb
cd tmpdeb
wget 'http://pkgs.yeolpishack.net/ChipMaster/tar/e16_1.0.25-1jfp_riscv64.tgz'
tar xzf e16_1.0.25-1jfp_riscv64.tgz
sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Then you can delete (or keep) the residue.

To use “e16” you just need to launch it from the ~/.xinitrc. Change the line that usually reads exec twm (if you haven’t changed it) to exec e16. Then exit your current WM and it should auto-log you into e16. To simplify shutdown of the DevTerm you may want to enable the “shutdown” option in the logout box from the “settings” panel. Then you can click the shutdown button when you log out. FYI: besides the logout on the menu e16 defaults to the typical 'doze keystroke of [CTRL][ALT][DEL], which on the DevTerm requires the addition of the [FN] key. :wink: And the the three-finger salute becomes four!

I’ll eventually get these in a proper Debian style repository… but as usual they broke stuff. I’ll have to figure out a way hack around it.

EDIT: As of now that tar ball also contains the key binding editor, menu editor and “epplet” collection. “Epplets” are basically like “dock” or “wharf” apps, without needing any particular construct to put them in. They stay put wherever you place them around your desktop. They automatically remember to restart or not based on whether they were running when you logged out. They are significantly less space consuming than gkrellm. Still needs some good testing… but that will happen as I get my desktop setup for my day-to-day use. :smiley:

EDIT: I noticed the “e16” man page is missing. I’ll have to figure out why it didn’t build when the package compiled… :frowning:

EDIT: I have restored the man pages into the e16 package.

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Wait is this the version with the metal looking theme? I remember putting it on FreeBSD 6.0 (2007ish?) and was totally blown away by its speed.

Yes, it has a theme called “brushed metal”. I don’t have it in the package. But it is in the tar balls at SF.net. Actually it has several themes named after “metal”. But I believe that “brushed metal” was the common one usually paired with e16.

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Thanks, I bookmarked it. Will try it out when my R01 arrives.
Hopefully this will also bring back some memories of that distant summer :slight_smile:

OK. I have figured out what Debian broke and have restored the man pages to the e16 package. The tar ball download link above has the updated e16 and e16-data packages. They are version 1.0.25-2jfp. You can check you have the right download by checking the package file names.

YEAH! Thanks for the Package. As soon as my R01 arrives this gets installed :slight_smile:

For all that want some screenshots for e16 themes: Album: e16-themes-gallery

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Awesome! Thanks! I’ve thought about that “aliens” theme many times. Pretty cool. But eats a lot of screen space. Lots of other cool themes there. Do you have any of these themes? I’ve been getting around to updating the few I have and putting together a package for them.

There is a Github Repo and a website with all the stuff: https://themes.effx.us/

i think you can also take a look at freshmeat via archiv.org for original downloads :slight_smile:

the last time i used e16 was back in the 90s or early 00s :slight_smile: i dont have any files related to e16 from that time anymore.

Oh goody! ::drool,dribble,drool:: I just cloned their theme archive to my machine!

JIC you don’t know: you can reach what’s left of freshmeat with the link I provided above. That might be better than archive.org… or might not. :man_shrugging: Unfortunately it doesn’t appear the search box works. But I think I’ll probably try a site-targeted search on duck-duck.

The one thing I’ve never had was directions for theming e16. Thanks for the link. I’ve got some reading to do!

You are welcome :slight_smile:
Maybe e24 is also something for the R01. With full desktop it uses less then 200mb RAM. But e16 is much lighter tbh, yeah :wink:

still waiting for my R01 ^^

Looks like Ubuntu is shipping e25 in the standard repositories. So you can play with it when your R-01 finally arrives. That wait is a bummer!

E17+ is definitely heavy in the bling department. I prefer e16 because its smaller, simpler to build (I made my packages in an evening, not a month of evenings), it still has more features and I ran into too many bugs with E17+. I still try it out from time to time when I toy with a new distro. I have it running on my Pine A64, mostly because I was too lazy to build E16. :slight_smile: Still I really like Terminology.

Do you know the SHR Distribution for the OpenMoko Freerunner? One upon a time - lol - with a embedded base EFL (and Enlightenment E17+) was an option for mobile phones b/c of the few system resources it uses. but yes, even after that long time E17+ exists it’s still not THAT stable.

Maybe I will give it a try on the R01 :wink:

Terminology is really nice, yes!

Yes, indeed I was familiar with the OpenMoko project and I understood that E17+ was involved in it. I wanted one for a while… but they fizzled out before I got motivated to get one.

I left the world of windwoes to gain stability so I get pretty grumpy with unstable software. But the biggest issue I had with E17+ was when using it over VNC I couldn’t get the keyboard to work. It kept mismapping keys. If I can’t type its a show stopper! :laughing:

E16 doesn’t have that issue. Its just a little goofy with focus lists in multi-monitor environments (aka Xinerama). I might just try re-compiling without that support enabled and see how it behaves. It would be sooo cool to [ALT]+[TAB] in an orderly fashion between monitors!