Enlightenment

USE flags

All Wayland related modules should be either disabled or enabled, depending on the wayland USE flag status.

For a working Enlightenment installation, USE flags with EFL are important.

Latest Enlightenment

For installing the latest Enlightenment WM and the needed libraries, just issue the following command:

For SVG support e.g. for previews or menu entries, install dev-libs/efl with the svg USE flag enabled.

Addition to /etc/portage/package.use (unless you already have the svg USE flag globally enabled) and install the package:

Enabling at least these USE flags for efl is recommended when running Enlightenment: X drm eet fontconfig gles2 gstreamer harfbuzz ico jpeg2k pulseaudio sound svg system-lz4 systemd

Stable Enlightenment

Because upstream only provides support for the latest Enlightenment, Gentoo will try to follow upstream's release cycles closely. When preferring to use older releases of Enlightenment WM, setting up a local overlay to store ebuilds for x11-wm/enlightenment and dev-libs/efl may be necessary. Older ebuilds can be located by utilizing gentoo.git history.

On stable systems, to get the latest stable version, type

Utilize /etc/portage/package.mask to block incoming updates.

Enlightenment live ebuilds

The process is a little different because it's recommended to always rebuild all of the components using their current state in Git. Verify Layman or Eselect/Repository has been installed, then add the enlightenment-live overlay.

or

Verify all core enlightenment packages using live ebuilds. This can be updated using the exact same command to ensure that all core packages are updated.

The enlightenment-core-9999 set contains the following packages:

''
 =dev-libs/efl-9999 
 =x11-wm/enlightenment-9999 
 =x11-terms/terminology-9999

When installing both stable and experimental EFL application, enlightenment-apps-9999 may be set. It contains:

''
 =app-editors/ecrire-9999
 =app-misc/equate-9999
 =dev-vcs/egitu-9999
 =media-gfx/eluminance-9999
 =media-gfx/ephoto-9999
 =media-video/rage-9999
 =net-irc/express-9999
 =net-p2p/epour-9999
 =dev-util/espionage-9999
 =sys-process/evisum-9999

Be aware that they are currently masked for ~amd64, so they may require unmasking:

If anything goes wrong, file a ticket on GitHub or contact User:Rafspiny. Those are live ebuilds and therefore they can occasionally need updating. I'm also considering starting a separate overlay just for Enlightenment.

Enlightenment e16

Old Enlightenment-e16 is still maintained. Install it from Gentoo's main tree with

Enlightenment

Enlightenment's configuration is all handled through the settings editor from within enlightenment. "Under-the-hood" configiratopm options can be accessed via:

And there's also a command line tool called vieet which especially useful in emergency. In many cases, if Enlightenment's configuration gets broken, moving ~/.e and ~/.elementary to a temporary place, then re-starting Enlightenment usually helps.

Launching enlightenment with startx

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">exec dbus-launch --exit-with-session enlightenment_start</syntaxhighlight>

Adding Gadgets to desktop

Open up menu and navigate to "Desktop -> Add Gadgets".

Autostarting applications on login

There's a comprehensive setting editor for that in the Settings Panel, under "Applications -> Autostart applications"

Disabling desktop application icons

The option to disable application icons in desktop is a bit hidden. Open Settings Panel then go to "Files" tab, navigate to "File Manager -> Display" and uncheck "Icons On Desktop".

Using 'bryce' instead of old-fashioned panel

With recent versions, users can opt to use experimental new "bryce" instead of old panel. Open desktop menu and navigate to "Desktop -> Add Bryce". Bryces are experimental in Enlightenment's versions below 0.25.

Wayland session

Easiest way to start a wayland session is to use a wayland-compliant login manager, like GDM or SDDM. Wayland session can be started from TTY also, by calling

provided that wayland USE flag and dependencies are set up correctly. There are some fine-tuning options to be exported, if needed:

where ECORE_EVAS_ENGINE is set to wayland_egl or wayland_shm depending on SHM based software rendering or EGL is desired.

When using software rendering, also export ELM_ACCEL=none.

Note that in theory Wayland should work with elogind, but only systemd is supported by upstream.

Applications requiring system tray not working properly

Older applications still using xembed systray instead of appindicator may not work properly (Dropbox for example). Solution is to install a stand-alone system tray program, such as stalonetray.

Black window contents

If windows with completely black contents appear (most likely with the nvidia proprietary driver and Enlightenment 0.20.5 or 0.20.6), follow these steps:

• Log out from Xorg.
• Set E_COMP_ENGINE=sw, for example in ~/.xinitrc:

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">export E_COMP_ENGINE=sw
exec dbus-launch --exit-with-session enlightenment_start</syntaxhighlight>

Alternatively, set the variable in the /etc/environment file:

• Start X.
• Go to Settings->Composite->Advanced->Rendering and disable "Texture from pixmap".
• Then remove "export E_COMP_ENGINE=sw" from ~/.xinitrc and log out/in to get accelerated rendering again.

For more information see this bug report.

"No opengl engines found" with nvidia-drivers

With latest releases of mesa and xorg-1.20, efl can look for libGL.so from a wrong place. This results in Enlightenment's gl-engine not using opengl backend. This can be fixed with patchelf utility.

Identify where the libGL.so shared object is installed, usually /usr/lib/opengl/nvidia/lib/libGL.so. Then use patchelf to modify efl's gl engine,

And relog. Paths depend on system architechture. This needs to be done once, or everytime efl is re-installed.

Use systemd user session to select the window manager

When compiled with systemd USE flag enabled, Enlightenment installs a systemd service file to /usr/lib/systemd/user/graphical-session.target that can be used to spawn a graphical user session. This file however has Requires=xorg.target which requires set up xorg as a systemd service to be set manually.

"build error: conflicting types for ‘GLintptr’"

Most likely due to newer Mesa dropping openGL support for older graphics cards. Try building dev-libs/efl with gles2 -opengl to get GL working again.

"build error: undefined symbol: _EFL_GFX_PATH_CHANGED"

An unfortunate build error that's caused by existing libraries. There is usually a more detailed error, like: "/usr/lib64/libector.so.1: undefined symbol: _EFL_GFX_PATH_CHANGED". In this case, remove any existing installation of dev-libs/efl and the offending library.

See more in bug #651890.

Debugging

When attempting to move config files away and Enlightenment still does not work, debug the problem by typing the following and reading the log file:

It is useful when making a bug report to bugs.gentoo.org or upstream's Phabricator. If the log file does not imply clear errors, Enlightenment may need started with debugging tools such as gdb, strace, or valgrind.