Ixiptli

GUI Related Issues with Enlightenment 0.25.1 in Debian Bullseye with Any Preexisting Default Desktop

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Posted by on Jan 16 2022 in FOSS, Debian, Window Managers

A few days ago I decided to give a spin to Enlightenment 0.25.1, which has a dependency on EFL 1.26.1, another package I had to build 'a priori ' if I wanted to have 'the pleasure of flatness', , and which mere mention conjures up the notion of a 2-dimensional boresome space. There were no Debian packaging for EFL 1.26.1, much less Debian packaging for e17-0.25.1 (E). Thus, I had to hack older Debian packaging versions, nudging the respective builds until I eventually succeeded.

Notwithstanding, after installation of the two set of packages, I realized the fonts were not right. Additionally, upon starting Textadept editor, the application window size to physical screen relation was awful! Increasing the size of the application rendered ugly font ratios -- even if I increased the size of the text with CTRL+. Odd, I thought; perhaps my build was not correct? --after all, this was a preliminary hack.

Nevertheless, I continued experimenting by opening Yandex-Browser βeta for Linux (Скацатъ : Download for Debian) -- same issue. Then I opened up a Firefox recent release and, although the fonts displaying the content were readable, the peripheral, menu, URL address field, bookmarks bar, etc. looked tiny. I ended my experience by opening up Chromium browser and, since it shares some code with Yandex-Browser βeta, it was not entirely unexpected that it also displayed awfully -- in a smaller dimension than the physical screen size.

I had not experienced those issues in the different GNU / Linux distributions, with their multiple window manager desktops, that I had tried since circa 1995. At that time I struggled to bring up the X Window system under a Red Hat Linux distribution -- which, by the way, dual booted with OS/2 Warp3 in a bare metal entry server :

OS/2 Warp 3, orphaned by IBM, subsequently virtualized in VirtualBox

In other words, since that time I had not had to 'resize and/or scale' fonts in any of the different physical machines that I used. Window managers in GNU / Linux simply worked, 'out of the box,' after a successful installation.

Something was amiss. Posting to the Enlightenment developers' mail list simply yielded ambiguities: 'you have your fonts wrong,' stated the 'experts', and the like, as if I ever touched my system(s) font(s) attributes; these are working Debian default desktop window managers, like LXQT and GNOME3, where subsequently I have installed Enlightenment WM -- up to now with no issues.

After a couple of days, I reverted back to the previous properly displaying EFL 1.25.x Enlightenment, 0.24.x, and/or Window Maker (WMaker), my fall back window manager. Then, 'out of the blue,' I read a reply from another Enlightenment peer -- who was not even subscribed to the mailing list -- concretely stating the problem I was experiencing and conveying that he had even created a patch to revert what he thought was an unintended commit in the Enlightenment code. I asked him if he was willing to share his patches and he kindly agreed.

Below are the EFL 1.26.x Debian packages for AMD64 as well as the patched Enlightenment 0.25.x discussed 'a priori.' They were built with GCC10 for Debian 11, aka Bullseye. If you are on Debian and, like myself, do not usually disturb the distribution maintainers' default font and/or scaling attributes, these patched Enlightenment Debian packages potentially will prevent you from losing your valuable time and 'going nuts' attempting to figure out why Enlightenment wreaks havoc with your desktop fonts and applications and, more importantly, you will more likely appreciate this latest release of Enlightenment rather than dismissing it as a window manager for control fanatics and/or fascists.

EFL 1.26.x-y.z

e17-0.25.1 (Enlightenment) -- includes all backgrounds, thus huge size.

enlightenment-data_0.25.1-2_all.deb
enlightenment-data_0.25.1-2_all.deb.SHA256SUM
enlightenment_0.25.1-2_amd64.deb
enlightenment_0.25.1-2_amd64.deb.SHA256SUM
enlightenment-dev_0.25.1-2_amd64.deb
enlightenment-dev_0.25.1-2_amd64.deb.SHA256SUM

e17-0.25.1 (Enlightenment) -- Abridged includes only four backgrounds, thus decreased size.

enlightenment-data_0.25.1-3_all.deb
enlightenment-data_0.25.1-3_all.deb.SHA256SUM
enlightenment_0.25.1-3_amd64.deb
enlightenment_0.25.1-3_amd64.deb.SHA256SUM
enlightenment-dev_0.25.1-3_amd64.deb
enlightenment-dev_0.25.1-3_amd64.deb.SHA256SUM

Terminology 1.12.1

terminology-data_1.12.1-1.1_all.deb
terminology-data_1.12.1-1.1_all.deb.SHA256SUM
terminology_1.12.1-1.1_amd64.deb
terminology_1.12.1-1.1_amd64.deb.SHA256SUM

Resources are available AS-IS, i.e., NO EXPLICIT NOR IMPLICIT WARRANTIES.

Tag: "e17"

EFL 1.26.x-y.z

e17-0.25.1 (Enlightenment) -- includes all backgrounds, thus huge size.

e17-0.25.1 (Enlightenment) -- Abridged includes only four backgrounds, thus decreased size.

Terminology 1.12.1