Enlightenment (window manager) facts for kids
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Enlightenment 0.26.0
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| Original author(s) | Carsten Haitzler |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Enlightenment development team |
| Initial release | 1997 |
| Stable release |
0.26.0
 / 23 December 2023 |
| Written in | C (EFL) |
| Operating system | Unix-like |
| Type |
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| License | BSD 2-Clause |
Enlightenment, also known simply as E, is a compositing window manager for the X Window System. Since version 0.20, Enlightenment also supports Wayland. It is shipped with some Linux distributions such as Bodhi Linux and Pentoo.
Enlightenment is only a window manager at its core; however, with many modules included, it can be extended to resemble a full desktop environment. Since version 0.17 (E17), Enlightenment has been written with the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFL), and the Enlightenment project also writes a set of applications with the EFL.
History
E16 and before
The first version of Enlightenment was released by Carsten Haitzler in 1997. Originally, it was just a window manager before the addition of the EFL in E17.
With the release of E17 written with the EFL in 2012, Enlightenment went through a major rewrite, splitting the codebase into 0.16 (E16) and the versions after (E17). Some of the community decided to stay with the E16 codebase and continue development of this version, releasing under an independent versioning scheme from E17. It reached the 1.0 milestone and is still actively developed as of 2024.
E17 and later
In 2000, the development of the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries started to create a toolkit for writing applications that interoperate with Enlightenment, as well as other X window managers, too. As the EFL was built up, Enlightenment was rewritten to utilize the EFL, and in 2012 version 0.17.0 was released. As this version was completely rewritten to use the EFL, it is incompatible with E16.
The current version as of July 2024 is E26.
Usage
Bodhi Linux was built around the Enlightenment 17 desktop, but forked it to create the Moksha desktop.
Elive Linux also used a fork of E17 as its main desktop environment until 2019, when the 3.7 series was released. It also features E16 and has future plans to integrate the new E26 version.
Release history
| Version | Code name | Release date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| pre-alpha | Enlightenment Alpha1 | October 1996 | |
| 0.13.2 | DR13 | 18 January 1998 | |
| 0.14.0 | DR14 | 18 July 1998 | |
| 0.15.0 | DR15 | 12 March 1999 | |
| 0.16 | DR16 | 27 October 1999 | Still maintained as of 2024. Preferred by many people, especially as a "retro" desktop. |
| 0.17 | DR17 | 21 December 2012 | Major rewrite version. Was forked to create the Moksha desktop. |
| 0.18 | DR18 | 22 December 2013 | |
| 0.19 | DR19 | 15 September 2014 | |
| 0.20 | DR20 | 1 December 2015 | |
| 0.21 | DR21 | 1 June 2016 | |
| 0.22 | DR22 | 22 November 2017 | |
| 0.23 | DR 0.23 | 24 August 2019 | |
| 0.24 | DR 0.24 | 17 May 2020 | |
| 0.25 | DR 0.25 | 16 December 2021 | |
| 0.26 | DR 0.26 | 23 December 2023 | Current release. |
See also
In Spanish: Enlightenment para niños
