Ubuntu Karmic and enlightenment (e17) via easy_e17.sh

In order to get the ball rolling, open up a terminal…we’ll do all our work from there:

wget http://omicron.homeip.net/projects/easy_e17/easy_e17.sh

That command will provide us with easy_e17.sh, the handy script which will make updating e17 easier.  Now we’ll make it able to run:

sudo chmod +x easy_e17.sh

Now let’s install the basic tools to get easy_e17.sh running:

sudo apt-get install build-essential libtool autotools-dev automake1.9 subversion

We’re in business!  Now let’s install what dependencies we can using apt:

libglib2.0-dev libltdl-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev liblua5.1-0-dev libfontconfig1-dev libx11-dev libdbus-1-dev libbz2-dev libid3tag0-dev libpng12-dev libtiff4-dev libungif4-dev libjpeg62-dev libfreetype6-dev libpam0g-dev libxcursor-dev libxml2-dev libssl-dev autoconf pkg-config libpng3-dev libxkbfile-dev libsqlite3-dev libimlib2-dev libtagc0-dev libtag1-dev libxmu-dev libxdamage-dev libxcomposite-dev libasound2-dev

Okay, now on to the real goodness.  Run this from commandline:

sudo ./easy_e17.sh -i -e –packagelist=full

Let the script do it’s magic, grab a sandwich, and you should have everything fully installed in an hour or so, depending on your computer’s speed.

Then, you’ll need to set up the display manager to let you use enlightenment.  Unfortunately, it’s difficult and not recommended to use enlightenment’s display manager “entrance”, and gdm negates the beautifully quick start up time for enlightenment, as it takes a long time to boot the window manager after you log in.  Other display managers exist, but for now we’ll concentrate on just getting GDM to work.  Try this command:

sudo gedit /usr/share/xsessions/e17.desktop

Copy this content into the new file and save it:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=E-17
Comment=
Exec=/opt/e17/bin/enlightenment_start
Icon=
Type=Application

Then do:

sudo gedit /etc/environment

and append this to the end of the line in the file and save it:

:/opt/e17/bin

Now log out, log back in with GDM, this time selecting your e17 session from the session menu at the bottom of the gdm login screen, and you’re in business!  Bonne chance!