| Enlightenment | |
|---|---|
 | |
 Enlightenment 0.26.0 | |
| Original author | Carsten Haitzler |
| Developer | Enlightenment development team |
| Initial release | 1997; 28 years ago (1997) |
| Stable release | 0.27.1[1]  / 14 March 2025 |
| Repository | |
| Written in | C (EFL) |
| Operating system | Unix-like |
| Type | |
| License | BSD 2-Clause[2] |
| Website | www |
Enlightenment, also known simply asE, is acompositing window manager for theX Window System. Since version 0.20, Enlightenment also supportsWayland.[3] It is shipped with some Linux distributions such asBodhi Linux andPentoo.[4]
Enlightenment is only a window manager at its core; however, with many modules included, it can be extended to resemble a fulldesktop environment.[5] Since version 0.17 (E17), Enlightenment has been written with theEnlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFL), and the Enlightenment project also writes aset of applications with the EFL.
The first version of Enlightenment was released byCarsten Haitzler in 1997.[6][7] Originally, it was just a window manager before the addition of the EFL in E17.[8]
With the release of E17 written with the EFL in 2012, Enlightenment went through a major rewrite, splitting the codebase into 0.16 (E16) and the versions after (E17). Some of the community decided to stay with the E16 codebase and continue development of this version, releasing under an independent versioning scheme from E17. It reached the 1.0 milestone and is still actively developed as of 2025.[9]
In 2000, the development of the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries started to create a toolkit for writing applications that interoperate with Enlightenment, as well as other X window managers, too. As the EFL was built up, Enlightenment was rewritten to utilize the EFL, and in 2012 version 0.17.0 was released. As this version was completely rewritten to use the EFL, it is incompatible with E16.[10]
The current version as of January 2025 is E27.[11]
Bodhi Linux was built around the Enlightenment 17 desktop, but forked it to create theMoksha desktop.[12]
Elive Linux also used a fork of E17 as its main desktop environment until 2019, when the 3.7 series was released. It also features E16 and has future plans to integrate the new E26 version.
A 2011 review of E16 found it was highly customisable, featuring per-window configurability, support for virtual desktops with much larger screenspace than monitor size, and that "nearly everything can be done with the keyboard." While the appearance was praised, the desktop environment was criticised as being somewhat unstable due to bugs at the time. While E16 could be used as a window manager forGNOME orKDE, the review found they had poor compatibility.[13]
A 2014 review of E17 found the design to be fast, touchscreen friendly and have a nice appearance, but was annoyed by the small selection area to resize windows. The appearance of the default terminal with the desktop environment, calledTerminology, was also praised and the author personally liked the desktop left and right click menus.[14]
A 2017 review found E18 to have lightweight performance, remarking a similar appearance to Mac OS, but also mentioning a steeplearning curve due to the desktop left and right click menus.[8]
A 2020 review praised Enlightenment for its high number of keyboard shortcuts, and that it was lightweight enough to run well on older hardware, with low idle CPU and RAM usage. However, it criticised the desktop left and right click menus for having too much complexity.[15]
| Version | Code name | Release date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| pre-alpha | Enlightenment Alpha1 | October 1996[17] | |
| 0.13.2 | DR13 | 18 January 1998[18] | |
| 0.14.0 | DR14 | 18 July 1998[19][20][21] | |
| 0.15.0 | DR15 | 12 March 1999[22] | |
| 0.16 | DR16 | 27 October 1999[23] | Still maintained as of 2024. Preferred by many people, especially as a "retro" desktop.[24] |
| 0.17 | DR17 | 21 December 2012[25] | Major rewrite version. Was forked to create the Moksha desktop. |
| 0.18 | DR18 | 22 December 2013[26] | |
| 0.19 | DR19 | 15 September 2014[27] | |
| 0.20 | DR20 | 1 December 2015[28] | |
| 0.21 | DR21 | 1 June 2016[29] | |
| 0.22 | DR22 | 22 November 2017[30] | |
| 0.23 | DR 0.23 | 24 August 2019[31] | |
| 0.24 | DR 0.24 | 17 May 2020[32] | |
| 0.25 | DR 0.25 | 16 December 2021[33][34] | |
| 0.26 | DR 0.26 | 23 December 2023[35] | |
| 0.27 | DR 0.27 | 11 January 2025[36][37] | Current release. |
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