How do I start Enlightenment?
 

New to enlightenment.

I installed it on my Debian Sarge system.
How do I get around starting it ?

Whenever I typed engligtenment from the command line, it displays this screen.
I selected to edit files.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...nscreenie1.png



But then, a clock arrives near my mouse pointer, and the hands keep rotating.
There is no disk activity and I lost my patience.

How do I exactly start this Enlightenment thingy?

Thank you.

Hello there,
I would probably kill all X sessions and at the command line execute starte16. This is a special script which starts an X session and then initiates enlightenment. All window managers have their own start scripts (startkde, startfluxbox). Hope this helps

Valerie

Okay!

I will try that.

Morever, I was also not happy to see Enlightenment listed in the GNOME session Menu.

Yeah. After some reading, i found that Enlightenment is not exacly a Desktop Environment.

Can someone clarify this a bit?

Simple. Well, kind of. Don't feel dumb, it is a common starting question, and one that some advanced users are still confused on. :P


Enlightenment is a Window Manager.

KDE and Gnome are desktop environments.

The biggest difference is that a Desktop Environment tries to pull everyting together in a big package to do everything for everyone.

A window manager provides utilities for managing windows, and maybe a few bells and whistles.

A window manager can function on its own, but some of them need a little help.

If you startx from command line, then you need to put enlightenment into ~/.xinitrc. I don't know about gdm, but the option should appear out of the box in the menu, and just selecting it should allow you to run E.

The difference about a desktop and a wm is the same difference you get between a toolbox and a tool. The tool is part of the toolbox. In other words: the window manager (wm) is the component of a desktop that manages windows, and usually virtual desktops and such things. It draws the border and title bards, it allows you to move, maximize, minimize, close windows and some other stuff, depending on the degree of functionality that the wm has. Some wm's also tile the windows for you, and the key bindings are usually managed by the wm as well (besides the custom bindings that some apps define themselves).

Each desktop has a wm (kwin for kde, metacity for gnome, xfwm for xfce). But there are lots of wms that can work standalone, like fvwm, enlightenment, xmonad, ratpoison, evilwm, icewm, {black,open,flux}box and a long long list of other different wm's. Standalone wm's are very different to each other. They differ a lot in functionality and capabilities. It's also possible to substitute the wm for a desktop with an external wm. For example, you could run fluxbox under gnome or fvwm under kde. How well will that work entirely depends on the concrete pieces you are trying to mix. Of course, the integration will never be that good like the one of the native wm for that desktop.

Well... after almost four years maybe the OP is not at a starting level anymore! ;)

Kinda true.. ;-)

This is one of those cases where I should kick myself a few times, then remove my foot from my mouth. :P

Duh! I need to look at dates before responding to posts!
:-)

I just fed you info you probably figured out on your own a few years ago at least. hehehehhe.

Short answer, it depends on how you start X.

If using a display manager (graphical login / wm selection / .....), you can generally select it from there. Or reconfigure said dm to include the option.

If using startx from the command line. You should probably edit ~/.xinitrc.

The confusion I suppose lies in the layering. You have the kernel -> shell (bash) -> display manager -> window manager -> desktop environment. KDE and Gnome are both window managers and desktop environments. Depending on interpretation, or how you define the parts (metacity, nautilus, .....). Of course I just use startx so it's more like kernel -> shell -> window manager. Not as user friendly, but should you install a bad video driver, you're not jumping through hoops to use an otherwise good install / system. Or otherwise correct that mistake.

For me, my .xinitrc has this:
exec icewm-session

but it can also have:
exec startkde
or
exec gnome-session

I don't know the enlightenment exec off hand, but it should be similar. exec enlightenment or exec enlightenment-session. Google should know. I don't currently have it installed. So I can't test out that theory myself.

If you're running a display manager, it should have it as a boot/start selection. Assuming the distro configured things properly and you have it fully installed. kdm, gdm, xdm, wdm, and probably others. I don't generally run one because I update often enough to make it too annoying when you get a bad configuration or video driver version. And I generally run as little as possible to maximize available resources.

HTH