I'm currently running LXDE. What would Enlightenment offer me LXDE doesn't (aside from a nicer-looking interface)?
I'd love to go completely sans graphics but it makes basic web application testing problematic. And in the end, the bloatphobia is not warranted - just a curious pastime.
Not sure if I'll actually try the new version though. I have E16 configs that haven't been touched since the last millennium, and still work. Would be tough to give up on that kind of track record.
I was kind of thinking this way ten years ago, when I was building my first gentoo systems. I wanted them to be exactly adapted to my needs, the perfect match for my day to day usage. It was indeed great for educational purpose, one should always be able to build something perfectly fit, and I went that way for several years.
But then, there was this pain of always lacking something, not to mention the fun my friends had when visiting me, wanting to do something I wasn't commonly doing and heard me saying : "oh wait, I've just have to compile a few softwares for that" (granted the compiling stuff is gentoo related, but you see the idea : there was always something I need that I didn't have).
Today, I install kde-meta (which is a package that install everything in standard kde distribution) and I'm very happy with that. It's extremely rare that I want to do something desktop related and can't do it right away. Other people can use my computer without starring at me with blank face while I explain what wmii is (but I still have all my keyboard shortcuts and tweaks from wmii in kde) and I even don't feel the "bloated" aspect since I have now a very powerful system with huge storages.
I'm asking this in all seriousness, as I was, and still am, half sold on using it.
You know you can install it in a directory and just remove that and it's gone, right?
Of course I know how to uninstall, I just don't feel like doing it. I already said it's an Arch Linux install, and it should be clear that I appreciate minimalism. I can take extras as long as they are well thought out. Thus I am attempting ask what extra features are included in Enlightenment that would make me want it over other desktop environments? There are other environments that I flatly refuse to use, but I was really on the fence about using Enlightenment, and now that there is something new, I am wondering if there are excellent reasons for moving over. I was hoping for a simple, brief, explanation of the reasoning for Enlightenment over X desktop.
Perhaps I came off as trollish, and that was not my intention at all.
So, first of all, Enlightenment does come with a couple of apps - I seem to remember they have image viewer, file manager and... Well, probably some other apps, but I never installed any of them. They are completely optional and E17 is perfectly usable without them, provided that you have your favorite replacements for them (I use ROX as a GUI file manager and gqview for images).
Without those apps E17 still is not quite as pure as fluxbox and friends - it has many "modules", essentially plugins, that are included with it. They are all loaded and started separately from enlightenment and are meant to do... almost everything. I mean, every menu, taskbar, notification area, pager (minimap of virtual desktops) is a plugin of it's own and can be disabled with single click. You can configure every module separately or group them and manipulate a few of them together. Sure, there are modules that are less than necessary, for example cpu frequency meter or battery status (and probably many more, I never explored them) but you can disable them easily.
Basically, when you turn off all the modules you're left with something that does little more than the default XWM (but still looks much better;)).
One thing I mentioned I think is E17 strong point is it's configurability. You can rearrange everything to your tastes, both in terms of position/size and workings - and it's easy to do, you don't need to write config files, just move some piece where you want it and it's done. Also, every single function of E17 can be assigned to a hotkey, which I found very convenient.
The second is theming and eye candy: E17 community created many different themes that look very good and E17 provides very fast and beautiful animations which together makes it quite pretty. Of course it's not that much of a selling point now as it was a few years ago, but it's still good.
The third: E17 tends to play well with others. Almost every app you run under Enlightenment works alright: it has correct icon, minifies to where you want it minified, displays notifications in selected area and so on.
To summarize: the biggest feature of Enlightenment is it's ability to become exactly how you want it to be. It can be as slim or as bloated as you choose (defaults to something in the middle) - it gives you tools to customize it and then goes out of your way. Compared to fluxbox and others - it's prettier, as configurable as them and not much slower. Compared to KDE and others - it's much faster, much more configurable, and almost as complete as them (excluding office suite or games, which I think should not be a part of WM anyway).
I would suggest you to give it a try for a few days, if you can configure it to do what you want it to do you'll be satisfied, if not - you can go back to your current WM easily.
Thanks.
Enlightenment is different, faster and definitely cool. I'll try it again some other time.