Review of Elive 0.6.3 (Unstable)

Most Linux users use either the KDE or GNOME.. There are a few who like XFCE or FluxBox (mostly because their computer isn’t fast enough to run the first two). But here’s a new one that you probably haven’t heard of: Enlightenment. It is elegant, yet not a huge memory hog. The problem is that not many distros have it. You can get it for Puppy Linux, and there are ways to install it on Slackware, but that’s about it. Now, you can use a new one: Elive. Just as an FYI, you have to donate to the creators in order to download the development (or you can download from the slow server, which is VERY slow. In other words, 20 KB/s on an Optimum Online broadband connection).

Programs

Elive comes with two Enlightenment themes (Default and Night). It also comes with Firefox, IceDove (basically Thunderbird with a different name), Links2, Gftp, X-Chat, aMSN, Gaim, GIMP, Blender, Elicit, GtKam, GQview, Elive essence, Alsa mixer, XMMS, Streamtuner, Cplay, Grip, Rezound, ZynAddSubFx, Hydrogen, Qjackctl, MPlayer, Oxine, Kino, Cinelerra, Acidrip, AbiWord, Gnumeric, Xpdf, xpad, an alarm clock, TuxPuck, Torus Trooper, TypeSpeed, Thunar, Evidence, Midnight Commander, Gtk Pod, Scite, Grasero, Dialog cdrecord, GnomeBaker, ScummVM, DosBOx, Zsnes,and Qemu (and kqemu, and QEMU has an interface!).

I was a little surprised that they included so many options for IM (you don’t need aMSN and X-Chat if you have Gaim), and also OpenOffice.org wasn’t installed (although there was a folder for it in the start menu), but besides these minor quibbles there are a TON of tools.

This version also adds ntfs-3g, which is good as before Elive had a TON of problems with NTFS. Flash 9 and Java are also included.

Finally, since Elive is based on Debian, you can use apt-get to install tons of programs.

GUI

I had always liked KDE, but I was completely blown away by Enlightenment. It was very… elegant. Words can’t describe it (but the screenshot below can). You can probably install KDE or GNOME via Elive as well.

Minimal Requirements

The Elive page didn’t exactly say. I ran it on a virtual machine running with 128 MB of RAM, and it worked fine. So, it’s not a HUGE resource hog. You need 2.5 GB space free.

Installation

To install Elive, just click the button on the quick launch (the icon on the farthest right in the center taskbar). It wasn’t as painless as some *buntu installations, but it wasn’t as hard as some others that I’ve had to do. Just create three partitions: One for root (/), one for swap, and one for home. Of course, this is a development version, so I wouldn’t install this.

External Links

Homepage: http://www.elivecd.org/
Download: http://www.elivecd.org/gb/Download/Development/
Screenshots: Official, OS Wars: