Elive 2.0: Where Debian meets Enlightenment

After more than two and a half years of development, Elive 2.0 ("Topaz"), a Debian-based live CD with the Enlightenment E17 desktop environment, has been released. This is a major release, bringing Enlightenment lovers up-to-date. Under the hood lies Debian Lenny (5.0.3) with a Linux 2.6.30.9 kernel. Most users won't try Elive only for what it does, but also for what it looks like: it combines minimal hardware requirements with style and eye candy. The distribution works on a 100 MHz CPU with 64 MB of RAM, but a 300 MHz CPU with 128 MB RAM is recommended. Installing it requires 2 GB of disk space.

First a word of warning: Elive is pretty much a one-man show: Samuel "Thanatermesis" F. Baggen is working full-time on the distribution. One of the consequences is that users can download the distribution for free, but they have to pay (Elive calls it a "donation") to install it to a hard drive. This makes more sense than the previous policy (that asked for a donation to even download Elive 1.0), but it's not clear for visitors to the Elive web site: there is no mention on the home page nor the download page. Even the installer doesn't tell users the full details until they are well into the installation process and get redirected to the payment web page. Only after they have paid at least $15 using PayPal will they receive a code that they have to enter at www.elivecd.org/installer-module. After that, they are sent the (seemingly closed source) "installer module" by email.

Although the Elive project has been asking for donations for years and this could be called "common knowledge", it would be much more honest if the developer told users before the install begins that they have to pay — and how much. In the Complaints section of the Elive forum, one user questions the business model of Elive, and the developer responds: "The donation is forced for the stable version *only*, and for now that's the plans for it...". In the project's FAQ, he explains this rather bluntly:

Users that really don't want to pay can download the free (but purportedly unstable) development version of Elive, although at the moment there isn't a development version. Of course, they can also install plain Debian, then add the Elive repository to their /etc/apt/sources.list and install the Enlightenment packages, but this will likely result in an unstable desktop. Users can also request an invitation code, which is free for those who write an article about Elive or need it in an educational environment.

An idiosyncratic installer

The distribution also comes with its own user-friendly, but somewhat chaotic, installer that has advanced features such as upgrade and migrate modes. The latter allows users to migrate any Linux system to an Elive system: it copies user accounts including their passwords and files along with various configuration files. In the first step, the user is asked to choose from different customization levels: "Auto" (mostly automated), "Easy mode" (asking only a few questions) and "Complete mode" (fully featured). After this, the installer shows a vague message that the user has to make a "small payment" to use Elive.

The partitioning step shows a few options: use the full disk, start gparted or cfdisk, show some information about a RAID setup or do nothing at all on an already partitioned system. After this, the user is asked to obtain the installer module and enter an identifier on the web site. After receiving the module and clicking on OK in the installer window, the module asks the user to enter a security code to be sure the user knows that the installer will erase the disk. Then the installation begins and, though interrupted by a couple of questions, shows a progress bar while installing all packages on the hard disk.

Although it does the job without problems, the installer has an idiosyncratic user interface with lots of windows popping up, and it's not always clear what it is doing. The installation itself doesn't take long, but after the first boot (which shows a nice looking splash screen and an animated login screen), Elive begins a lengthy and seemingly inefficient post-install process, where your author saw hald stopping and starting twice and the initramfs being generated eight times. There's still work to do here.

A user-friendly Debian

Elive is more than just Debian with an E17 interface. It adds a lot of tweaks to make a more user-friendly version of its mother distribution. For example, the context menu in the file manager Thunar shows commands to convert music files to Ogg or MP3, as well as commands to convert image files to another resolution. It also offers a lot of functionality out of the box. For example, Firefox is configured with the Flash 10.0 plug-in for YouTube videos and MPlayer browser plug-ins for DivX, QuickTime, RealPlayer 9, and Windows Media Player. Skype is also installed by default. USB sticks are automatically detected and mounted, with an icon placed on the desktop, and DVDs are automatically played. Even the kernel has some extra user-friendly features, such as TuxOnIce for hibernation.

There are different kernels available, and their source can be found in the Elive repository. The source of the Elive-specific applications and modules can be found on the Elive development web site. On a related note, it's not clear to your author how much Elive contributes back upstream to Enlightenment, but Baggen is active on the Enlightenment bug tracker and he is contributing patches.

The distribution has an aptly named nurse mode, which offers recovery and repair features. For example, users can recover the default Elive configuration if they have messed up their settings. It is also able to check whether the system contains all the packages that are installed by default in Elive: if a user has accidentally deleted some crucial packages, some features could be missing. Other things that the nurse mode can do includes installing newer or special kernels, freeing space on the disk, and hardware tests. Also interesting is that it offers to help solve graphical problems by reconfiguring the Xorg configuration or reinstalling graphics drivers.

In order to prevent incompatibility problems with the tweaked Elive desktop when upgrading the Debian base, the distribution doesn't use the official Debian mirrors in /etc/apt/sources.list. From time to time, the project creates a snapshot of the entire Debian repository and mirrors it. This official Elive mirror is used in /etc/apt/sources.list for Debian software, in addition to another repository for Elive-specific software. According to Baggen, the snapshot is updated when a package needs an update for security reasons.

Beauty is in the details

Elive is dressed up with some impressive eye candy that is difficult to find in other distributions. For example, when the login screen appears, the box with the user name and password falls from the top of the screen. The box with the time and date and the shutdown icon each do a walk around the screen before they find their place, while the box where the user chooses the desktop also falls from the top of the screen and then stops at the top left. After this, a lot of words describing Elive appear on the screen. Even if this sounds somewhat over the top, it doesn't get in the way of the user: the login box works right from the start, so the user doesn't have to sit through the entire animation.

The Enlightenment desktop itself is also beautiful. At the top right, there's a pager that leads the user to different virtual desktops, while the bottom right is a notification area with icons for the network, battery, CPU temperature, and so on. At the middle bottom, there's a panel with quick launchers for some applications. Hovering over the launchers makes them grow in size. Minimizing an application's window brings its high-resolution icon to the top left on the desktop.

Enlightenment is known for its artful themes, and Elive 2.0 comes with four themes installed. The default "elive" theme comes with a non-intrusive light blue wallpaper that has some subtle twinkling white stars. Another theme, "Lucax3", has more personality: it has a dark blue wallpaper with energetically twinkling stars and black menus with purple arrows. When changing the Enlightenment theme, the user also gets invited to choose a Gtk+ 2.0 theme that matches. By the way, most users will only discover many subtle details in the style only after working with Elive for an extended time. For example, your author saw a scrolling window title in a title bar, but he has only seen happening it twice while writing this review.

Enlightenment is also fully customizable. Click on the wallpaper to open the menu, choose Settings and then Settings Panel to open the extensive Enlightenment settings. Here the user can change the look, the behavior of the windows, input settings, and so on. An interesting feature is that almost all settings windows have a "Basic" and an "Advanced version". In the default Basic mode, clicking on the Advanced button shows the user more options, and then clicking on the Basic button shows again the basic settings. In "Extensions - Modules", the user can pick various desktop modules, such as weather forecasts, a battery or CPU frequency monitor, but also more frivolous things like snow, fire, or rain on the desktop — or even walking penguins. However, be aware that some of these modules can be unstable.

Beautiful but disappointing

Elive 2.0 proves again that users can have a nice looking desktop without eating up all their computer's resources. That's mostly thanks to Enlightenment, which is refreshingly different from other desktop environments. The minimal hardware requirements make Elive a contender on netbooks. It's a pity that the commercial purpose of the distribution is covered up. Saying nothing about a requirement to pay on the home page or download page and then requiring it only in the middle of the install is deceptive. On the technical side, the installer and post-install process could use some work too. So all in all, while Elive 2.0 is a really nice showcase of an Enlightenment desktop, it's hard to see it becoming a wildly popular distribution.