Due to the (few people) need to have a lighter system, and the (few people) interest on having an OS using e16 as desktop, I’m thinking into create a derivative version (or “special version”) of Elive using E16 as desktop.
But then this should be not considered like a normal Elive system, this is why I want to make it somewhat a different project / subversion / derivative / special version, otherwise it could confuse the “what is Elive” concept, e16 is not only a different desktop with similar features as the one that we have, but it also has a different way of work, this means that you may have a 10% of missing “elive features” (speculating)
By naming it as a different project it could be good to separate the OS concept into a different one, but will have a negative impact in the amount of users and “known” of the distro, like starting from zero. If is made like a “special version” of Elive should be clearly named differently (imho) and this will make everything much easier
What’s your opinion?
Different project
Just as a “Elive special version”
0voters
What you preffer?
Featured like Elive & same applications
Small base of the desktop and nothing more, so the user should customize everything
Different project. Because I think it will be double the work (two repo, second forum, and so on) but it should be easier to let evolve by another userbase, if this will happen.
As you often explaining, a lot of Elive Features are ‘as is’ and hard to port (to 64bit and so on). So the approach ‘Just enough OS for E16’ is a pretty good one … Everything else will come over time.
It seems e16 is still being actively maintained, from what I have seen on enlightenment.org. There is even a ‘repository’ of e16 themes, or a collection of them. I think there are enough resources working on “retro” stuff-- there is an existing github for it, even, if one is keen on pursuing this.
Maybe have three themes with elive out-of-the-box (detourious, silk/Black and White, and Lucax) so that there are choices once e17 is installed? Just a thought…
Good news: I'm implementing a feature in the boot (similar to in old versions of Elive) on which you can select your preffered Enlightenment experience
I think as opposite as @LupusE, IMHO it should be called as "special Elive" and I'll try to explain my point of view: I found Elive by hazard looking for the lightest distro I can found (two laptop very old and slow with 1 GB RAM both), I tried it and I loved it because the DE is so pretty and experience it's so fluid that some days ago I finally bought some extra RAM to update my two laptops to improve this magnificent experience and also to be ready for future releases of Elive with the best ratio €/HW possible, and even I'll install soon Elive 2.0 Topaz in a very, very, very old IBM ThinkPad only for the fun. So discover Elive's experience in 1 laptop finally drives me to install Elive in 3 laptops and upgrade two of them with a few € to let them to continue "in the race" for still several years (with futures releases of Elive, of course).
Now, let suppose that the light distro I found wasn't called Elive but "Lupus Light Linux " i.e.; I'll be happy with it but I probably never know that exist a more powerful version called "Elive Standard Full Power" so in the future, if I'll buy a powerful PC, "Lupus Light Linux" will be an anecdote from the past and I'll probably install another Linux distro in the new and powerful PC...... but if the ultralight distro I enjoy among years was called "Elive Special Ultra Leggera" I'll dream to install "Elive Standard Full Power" in my new, nice, fast, expensive and powerful PC...
The deal is to clearly make the differences between those two flavours to learn user what they would to attempt of any of them.
Yes, something like that (brainstorming accepted) or even something more unconventional, in classic car's universe could be something like "Supperleggera" (as old Italian race cars like Ferrari or Alfa Romeo) versus "Supercharged" (like American muscle cars).... maybe the names like those could have a marketing effect?....
That's a hard question.
E16 might just be a good (unique) sales pitch for Elive but would surely require a lot of direct input by the e16 devs to be as good as e17 was in 3.0.6 IMO.
So frankly, despite my first animosity to e16 ....... I think a lot is to be gained there too.
On the other hand: E17/e22 is easier to configure.
So actually ........ I propose both (if we get sufficient support from the devs) or keep e16 for the 32bit (extra light) version.
This is getting off-topic maybe we should start a new thread on desktops now that the system is relatively stable.
So i moved it to this thread, which was originally meant for that
NOTE: this thread was originally meant to discuss if Elive should release an e16 version like a specific "e16 version desktop" (this means, the download links showing "Stable, Beta, Compiz, E16... " or similar). OR it should be released as a different project (not named Elive? so like an elive-based distro different project? sounds a bit harder...)
Methinks 32 versus 64 bit allows for a distinction, where 32 bit should be as light as possible aimed at low RAM laptops/desktops.
I'm not sure whether e16 is actually lighter on resources than e17, though.
Like I said before: There is definitely something unique in using e16 as the (default?) desktop ... no other distro does that.
In fact it is, but e17 (or newer) is SO light that can be easly comparable, the difference is that newer E's can require bigger resources easily (like using a theme which requires more, for example if in your elive stable you switch between the elive theme and default dark theme you can see that consumes less), even the wallpaper creates a noticeable difference
Yes, 64 & 32 bits are differently optimized, but has not much relation with the desktop... I mean, yes e16 can be lighter but its an entirely different experience (which has a bigger impact), so its sounds more like "elive flavours" related to the desktop than related to optimization
By other side a super light version could be made too, but this will meant to remove a lot of features (cairo-dock should be not included probably too, well, it manages the ram pretty good but it adds between 50 and 150 mb of extra ram required to run it... but removing it, much less features)
Good point I will add this sentence to the other thread in order to collect some words / ideas
True. Elive's strong point is having a a full snazzy desktop experience using very little resources.
Yes, point taken.
Cairo dock is almost a full desktop in itself and the source of quite a few "problems" on e16.
Maybe it should be toned down, especially for 32Bit.
If I find some time I'll look around for alternatives. Thinking non-gnome centric there.
well, i already optimized it to be lighter and removed some useless parts, if im not wrong the actual settings takes around 40-50 mb of ram (which is not much), but if you enable composite & GL for cairo-dock it adds like 100 Mb more
because the DE is so pretty and experience it's so fluid that some days ago I finally bought some extra RAM to update my two laptops to improve this magnificent experience and also to be ready for future releases of Elive with the best ratio €/HW possible, and even I'll install soon Elive 2.0 Topaz in a very, very, very old IBM ThinkPad only for the fun. So discover Elive's experience in 1 laptop finally drives me to install Elive in 3 laptops and upgrade two of them with a few € to let them to continue "in the race" for still several years (with futures releases of Elive, of course).
maybe we should start a new thread on desktops now that the system is relatively stable.
I will add this sentence to the other thread in order to collect some words / ideas
