This one is for anyone who has wanted to try e17 but was put off by the default settings. I have done my best to provide "sane" and expected settings both during the live run and after installation. For example, one default setting is that moving the mouse cursor off the right-hand side of the desktop will switch to the next virtual desktop. That has been disabled. Another default setting is that Alt-F4 will switch to virtual desktop 4. That's been changed that to the "expected" behavior of closing the current active window.
There is only one window manager and one desktop environment installed - e17. This respin is not intended for one to install LXDE or another DE "on top" to see what happens. The e17 version installed is, as far as I can tell, the last beta version. It was installed from the sid repository. That repository is still in the sources list, but is
disabled. Enable it at your own risk. I tried one other repository for getting a more current e17 version installed, but it didn't work out. My hope is that once Wheezy is out of testing, Sid's repo will be populated with the latest e17 release packages.
There is only one theme installed, apart from the butt-ugly "default" theme. It is named 23oz and seems to appeal to most people. More themes are available at
e17-stuff's website, which is bookmarked in the web browser. e17 themes tend to use a lot of disk space. Software driven compositing is enabled, giving true transparency. The compositing can be enhanced with just three clicks if you have an OpenGL compatible video card.
If you wish to experiment with all the settings, (there are many), make a backup of the e17 configuration directory, just in case you get stuck. You can do so by opening a terminal and entering:
cp -R ~/.e ~/.e-backupYou can copy the backup directory back to ~/.e if your configuration changes didn't turn out as you expected. You can also do this to keep a backup of all changes you've made and want to keep. There is also a copy of the directory in /etc/skel/.e.
Some of the desktop terminology used is unique to e17. For example, the top and bottom desktop panels are referred to as "shelves". Menu navigation is similar to the *Box DEs. Left-click the desktop and you get the main menu. Right-click the desktop and you get the Favorites menu. The main menu is replicated in the lower shelf with a menu button. The Favorites menu is replicated as a program launcher module called Ibar.
Loadable modules must be enabled before they can be used. Modules can be loaded and unloaded by navigating in the main menu to Settings > Modules. Any loaded module becomes a gadget that can be displayed on the desktop or in a shelf. Ibar is a gadget in the top shelf. Clock is a gadget in the top center of the desktop. The most used sections of the main menu are:
Applications - Programs menu by categories
Settings - The main settings control panel as well as some subsections
System - The logout/reboot/shutdown etc. menu
e17 is very light on computer resources, will run in the same amount of RAM as Openbox will, is very fast and is capable of a lot of eye candy. You can download the iso and md5 files from the links below. The iso size is 565MB.
http://tyruiop.eu/~melodie/Downloads/ISOS/Debian/Deb-e17_RC1.isohttp://tyruiop.eu/~melodie/Downloads/ISOS/Debian/Deb-e17_RC1.iso.md5Based on: Wheezy 32bit netinstall
Kernel: 3.2.0-4-686-pae
Window manager: e17
Desktop: e17
Highlighted applications:
Latest Thunar file manager
Qupzilla web browser
Claws email client
VLC media player
Juffed text editor
