E17 - Enlightenment, also known simply as E, is a stacking window manager for the X Window System which can function as a compositing window manager as well. It may be used alone as a substitute for a full desktop environment, or in conjunction with a desktop environment such as GNOME or KDE. The latest stable release is E17. Enlightenment developers have referred to it as "the original eye-candy window manager" # Enlightenment allows you to have a grid of workspaces called virtual desktops. Switching between them is achieved by hurling the mouse cursor to the edge of the screen, at which the desktop appears to slide across to reveal the next. The maximum grid size is currently 8 by 8 desktops, and you can have 32 grids (each with a different background), making 2048 total possible desktop spaces. (Users can enable a map of the desktops, in case they get lost, which is called the pager.) # The desktop dragbar allows a desktop to be 'slid back' to reveal the desktop 'underneath'. The E team use the analogy of sheets of paper, stacked on top of each other, where you can slide off a piece partially to reveal what's beneath. * Newer versions include compositing effects such as fading and transparency. One of the aims of the window manager is to be as configurable as possible, and to this end, it includes customization dialogs for focus settings, window movement, resizing, grouping and placement settings, audio, multiple desktop, desktop background, pager, tooltip and autoraise settings. It also includes a special effects dialog, including a desktop 'ripple' effect. E17 # One or more shelves to manage the gadget placement and appearance on the screen # Animated, interactive desktop backgrounds, menu items, iBar items and desktop widgets are all possible # Window shading, iconification, maximising and sticky settings --- LXDE is a free and open source desktop environment for Unix and other POSIX compliant platforms, such as Linux or BSD. The goal of the project is to provide a desktop environment that is fast and energy efficient. The name LXDE stands for "Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment".[1][2] LXDE is designed to work well with computers on the low end of the performance spectrum such as older resource-constrained machines, especially those with low amounts of RAM.[3] In 2010, tests suggested that LXDE 0.5 had the lowest memory usage of the 4 most popular desktop environments of the time (GNOME 2.29, KDE Plasma Desktop 4.4, and Xfce 4.6),[4] and that it consumed less energy,[5] which suggests mobile computers with LXDE 0.5 drained their battery at a slower pace than those with other desktop environments. In reviewing Linux distribution rankings for DistroWatch in early January 2011 for the year 2010 versus 2009, Ladislav Bodnar noted the increase in popularity of LXDE versus other desktop environments. He said, "Looking through the tables, an interesting thing is the rise of distributions that use the lightweight, but full-featured LXDE desktop or the Openbox window manager. As an example, Lubuntu now comfortably beats Kubuntu in terms of page hits, while CrunchBang Linux, a lightweight distribution with Openbox is still in the top 25 even though it failed to produce a stable release for well over a year. Many other distributions started offering LXDE-based editions of their products, further contributing to the dramatic rise in popularity of this relatively new desktop environment."[8] * Unlike other major desktop environments such as GNOME, the components of LXDE have few dependencies and are not tightly integrated.[12] Instead, they can run independently of each other.[13] --------------- It looks like E17 is configured for higher resource usage. Also Note the last paragraph about LXDE -- proabably why it starts faster -- I can run parts of it without a hugh infrastructure being needed to start in background. Also important is the low-memory footprint feature. Since I run it remotely on a server, I usually don't want my remote X stuff to eat lots of memory (file caching and network caching are prime things it does), though rebuilding a kernel a few minutes is another occasional task. I note that everytime I start Gnome or KDE stuff they leave lots of processes around long after I've closed all their windows. E17 sounds like it is designed more for Eye Candy -- WHICH, in general, I LIKE, BTW, but as something above the resource-minimal usage of LXDE...which is better for programming/engineering and day-to-day server operations. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org