Enlightenment

One of the many advantages to Linux is its ability to install and run on old computers. What Linux can't *technically* do is make an old computer's hardware magically perform better. After all, the hardware is the sam hardware as ever, and sometimes old hardware feels notably slower when tasked with processing modern software that tries to take advantage of new hardware features. This means that an old computer running Linux also must run a basic desktop, because too many effects or animations might use up precious memory and graphics processing, resulting in sluggish performance.

The Enlightenment desktop wasn't necessarily designed to solve this problem, but in practice that's exactly what it does. With its finely-crafted foundation and custom libraries, Enlightenment provides an attractive and dynamic environment that runs smoothly on old computers and low-powered systems like the Raspberry Pi. You never have to feel like you're compromising your UX just because you're running modest hardware. It is, true to its name, the delivery on the promise of eco-friendly computing and the first line of defense (or second, if Linux itself is the first) against planned obsolescence.

Of course, you don't have to run Enlightenment on an old computer. It works just as well on new computers.

Install Enlightenment from your distribution's software repository. Past versions of Enlightenment are still popular today (and some are still maintained as separate projects), and all of them are good, but the latest versions are the ones above 20. After installing, log out of your current desktop session so you can log in to your new Enlightenment desktop. By default, your session manager (KDM, GDM, Lightdm, or XDM, depending on your setup) will continue to log you into your default desktop, so you must override the default when logging in.

With GDM:

Selecting your desktop in GDM [IMG]

With KDM:

Selecting your desktop in KDM [IMG]

The first time you log in to Enlightenment, it asks for some basic prefenences, such as your desired language setting, size of window title bars, and so on. It's OK to accept the defaults when unsure. It's safe to ignore the warning about **connman** not being available. On most distributions, Network Manager is used instead of Enlightenment's own **connman**.

Enlightenment desktop

By default, the Enlightenment desktop provides some desktop icons for common places such as your home directory, the root directory, and a temporary directory. There's also a "shelf", a docking area at the bottom of the screen where major applications could go when minimized, where launchers could be created for quick access to common applications, and where applets (such as volume control, a clock, keyboard layout, and so on) run.

Anything configurable in Enlightenment is configurable with a right-click.

Enlightenment running on Fedora [IMG]

Features

To access an application menu, click anywhere on the desktop. Enlightenment is a desktop environment, but it's disguised as a window manager. Its primary task is to help you arrange and manage windows, but it also ships with a file manager (called **fileman**) and has options to use a network manager called **connman** and its own terminal called **terminology**. It also has a global settings panel to help manage themes, keyboard shortcuts, screen resolution, and so on.

Because Enlightenment only ships with a few applications itself, your "default" application set can stay unchanged from what you were using before trying Enlightenment. All of your K apps or GNOME applications, and third party applications like Firefox or Blender or Libre Office function as usual.

Enlightenment is a smooth, appealing, and modern desktop experience. Settle in and become enlightened!