Enlightened Gnome: The Ultimate in Ubuntu Eye Candy

[poofyhairguy]

BIG EDIT: People have been asking me about performance. I have found that this Eye Candy trick makes things FASTER!!!! (both versions) The trade off is that its harder to use.

I have the E16 version of Enlightened Gnome running on a 128mb, 300mhz computer and IT FLYS!

Poofyhairguy here, with my latest way to increase your desktop’s Eye Candy. Last time I brought you the Luminocity Guide, but all that showed me was that Luminocity is a toy.

Disclaimer

Today I bring you an update that can make your desktop prettier. Please note that only more advanced users should do this, I don’t want you to cry to me if everything breaks. I will use some tough terminology, if you don’t understand this howto is not for you. Consider yourself warned. All Most of the things can be undone.

Introduction

First I have to introduce the big players involved:

Smoon: his repository makes it all work. Thank him in your own way, but be sure to do it

Rasterman: The creator of Enlightenment that has magic code pour from his fingers. He is the only reason this works at all.

Gnome Developers: Even though they are really getting behind the KDE people when it comes to Eye Candy (just my opinion) they at least give us ways to make up for it.

Here is the summary: Gnome is a desktop environment. Inside Gnome there are many programs that work together, and one of them is Metacity a Window Manager. To normal users, Metacity is the thing that “draws all of that black **** all over my desktop when I minimize apps.” Enlightenment is a Window Manager like Metacity, but it is not connected to Gnome (it was at one point).

For a better explanation of the differences, look here:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=157571&cid=13207087

My howto guts Metacity from Gnome, and replaces it with Enlightenment. The advantage to this over just using Enlightenment is that GTK apps look WAY better, you can use (most) of the Gnome GUI tools to help you administer you system, and you can get access to all of your applications easier. Also (amazingly) I have found that after trading out Metacity for Enlightenment, everything feels FASTER. Prettier and faster, quite the combo.

Decision Time

Now you must make a decision: Am I going to use e17 or e16?

E17 is the unstable beta version that must be installed this way:

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthre...&highlight=e17

When E17 works inside of Gnome it has some incompatibilities (the nautilus desktop draws over the E17 tools, and E17 lacks virtual desktops or task switching that is compatible with Gnome).

E16 is the stable version. It can easily be installed from the Universe in Synaptic. It works way better with Gnome, and the newest version has some neat tricks such as fake transparencies.

To install E16: make sure the Universe repo is in your sources.list, then enter this command into normal terminal:

sudo apt-get install enlightenment

Metacity--------------------E16--------------------E17
Ease of Use ---------------------------------------Looks

There is a chart. The reasons to pick E17: the title bar of Windows look like they are hit by lightening, fake drop shawdows are neat. The reasons to use E16: Still better than Metacity, GUI tools stay on top of Nautilus desktop, many Gnome tools work, has neat minimize trick.

I suggest E16 the most, just because it works best with Gnome and because its not beta. But for me...

I personally used E17 because the “lightening strikes the in focus task” is the eye candy I seeked. But on a friend’s machine I used E16 (Smoon’s E17 didn’t work for me that day) and he liked it. Overall it worked better with Gnome. But do what you want, this howto applies to both for the essential parts.

First thing to do in to install Enlightenment. Then log out of Gnome and log into whatever Enlightenment you choose to see if it works. If it doesn’t work, then you are using E17 and its broken today, try E16 or stop now.

If you don't see the option, do this (thanks bored2k and bob mitch)

sudo gedit /usr/share/xsessions/Enlightenment.desktop

Then put this in the new file:

[Desktop Entry] Encoding=UTF-8 Name=Enlightenment Comment= Exec=enlightenment Icon= Type=Application

Save the file as Enlightenment.desktop

MAKE SURE YOU CAN LOG INTO ENLIGHTENMENT!!!!!

Then after you affirm that you can, log out and go back to Gnome. Time to make the two work together.

The Actual Trick

You can thank mendicant for posting this info on the forum in the first place. Makes it all possible.

Put this in regular terminal:

sudo cp /usr/share/gnome/default.session ~/.gnome2/session

Then this:

sudo gedit ~/.gnome2/session

Look for this line:

1,RestartCommand=gnome-wm --sm-client-id default1

Change the like to look like this:

1,RestartCommand=gnome-wm --default-wm enlightenment --sm-client-id default1

Save the file. Restart the X server (hit ctrl, alt, and backspace at the same time).

Then log back into Gnome. Enlightenment will start after a little while. Be very patient. The first time it took me a few minutes to log in., and my machine is pretty fast.

If it worked, you will be on your new desktop, using Enlightened Gnome.

Suggestions

If you used E16 start playing with the tools, get used to them. Also get to work on changing the default theme….its pretty ugly to me. Luckily there are hundreds of E16 themes on the internet.

If you used E17 you are faced with a problem. The Gnome desktop covers up the e17 tools. You have two choices for now:

1. Use one of the other desktops. Move your mouse to the far right to find them. Go back to the first one for Pen Drives and CDs.

2. Do what I did: install some gdesklet love. Gdesklets can be installed in Synaptic if you have added the backport repository. To install a gesklet, download the tar file from the site, start the gesklet program (under accessories) and drag and drop the tar file onto the gdesklet manager program.

3. Applications > System Tools > ConfiguratioN Editor > apps > nautilus > preferences > UNCHECK show desktop. (thanks bored2k)

Here is the gdesklet I used:

http://gdesklets.gnomedesktop.org/ca...&gd_app_id=210

A few other notes about E17:

Since nothing on the default bottom Gnome Panel works anymore (except for trash)I just deleted the panel.

In the long run E16’s Engage:

http://www.enlightenment.org/Applica...age/index.html

Would be better than gdesklets. Anyone know how to add programs launchers to that thing? It can be installed from the Universe.

To task switch in E17+Gnome, use hit the tab key and the alt key at the same time(MS Windows style). I have not found a better method yet.


Normal task switching works fine with E16.

Also, its nice to turn off the feature that kicks you to another desktop when you go to the far right. To do that, enter this command into the regular terminal:

enlightenment_remote -edge-flip-set 0

After you do that, get to your other desktops by going through the upper right hand corner of your desktop with your mouse.

Here is the page with the other remote commands:

http://get-e.org/User_Guide/English/_pages/3.1.html

Also I really dislike the default E17 theme. I had this working in the past and gave up because I thought the default theme was blah. Then Stormy Eyes gave me the last piece to the puzzle:

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showpost...9&postcount=32

I like the Slate theme best….its very Gnomish.

http://get-e.org/Themes/E17/index.html

Well…That’s it for now. Enjoy Enlightened Gnome. Please leave suggestion in the thread and I’ll add them at my discretion.

Here is a screenshot:

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showpost...53&postcount=1

But don't go by that. The coolness can't be shown in screenshots.

[Stormy Eyes]

Originally Posted by poofyhairguy Also I really dislike the default E17 theme. I had this working in the past and gave up because I thought the default theme was blah. Then Stormy Eyes gave me the last piece to the puzzle:

Thanks for the mention. If you want to make program icons for Engage, you have to refer to Section 3.3 of the E17 manual for information on making EAP icon files, and then use the entangle utility (aka the Menu Editor in the E17 menu) to tell Engage which icons to show by default.

[poofyhairguy]

Originally Posted by Stormy Eyes Thanks for the mention. If you want to make program icons for Engage, you have to refer to Section 3.3 of the E17 manual for information on making EAP icon files, and then use the entangle utility (aka the Menu Editor in the E17 menu) to tell Engage which icons to show by default.

Thanks again Stormy. I'll play with that.

[poofyhairguy]

Lots of big edits......For most users I would recommend E16...

Man its fast! Look at these benchmarks:

http://www.rasterman.com/index.php?page=News

Beats the crap out of Metacity.

[Rob2687]

I did 'sudo apt-get install enlightenment' but there's no e16 in the login thing

[bored2k]

Originally Posted by Rob2687 I did 'sudo apt-get install enlightenment' but there's no e16 in the login thing

Originally Posted by bobmitch Create a file called e17.desktop in /usr/share/xsessions/ Add the following lines to this file: [Desktop Entry] Encoding=UTF-8 Name=Enlightenment Comment= Exec=enlightenment Icon= Type=Application

Log out, tht should do it.

[Rob2687]

Originally Posted by bored2k Log out, tht should do it.

DIdn't work initially but so i checked the file I create and tried to take ownership of it,,,didn't work either so I was playing around with chmod and chown.
Then the file I created magically disappeared and a new file called Enlightenment.desktop magically appeared.

Weird

and that's my story

[poofyhairguy]

Here is another thread with info on this neat new trick.

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=54478

[darkmatter]

Originally Posted by poofyhairguy My howto guts Metacity from Gnome, and replaces it with Enlightenment. The advantage to this over just using Enlightenment is that GTK apps look WAY better,

Oh...Really...
http://ubuntuforums.org/gallery/showimage.php?i=643&c=4

http://ubuntuforums.org/gallery/showimage.php?i=644&c=4

It's amazing what preloading the gnome-settings-daemon can do...

[kittcankitt]

If I made a copy of my current ~/.gnome2/session file and put it somewhere else and decided to go back to it, would it be fair enough to say all I have to do is replace the new one with my backup and log back into gnome? I only ask because I am currently using openbox inside gnome and find it quite responsive compared to metacity. I would like to try e16 and see if I can get even more of a kick out my box.

Thanks and nice how-to

KCK

I renamed the the first session and created the new one...played with e16 for a bit and decided to see if I could return to the original and all went well. For now I'll stick with openbox til I can convince the missus to get used to e16. At least now all I have to do is re-rename my e16session.