e17 is a rocking WM. Its lightweight and has all kinds of crazy cool stuff. Unfortunately there aren’t any stable releases and binaries tend to be hard to come by.

I wanted to slap e17 on my laptop which is running Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex, and there exist scripts like easy_e17 to simplify the process but I found it just complicated and convoluted things. So, I just opted to do it manually.

The e17 User’s Guide is actually the best starting place.

From there its just compile and follow instructions. Also you’ll need to create a way to start e17 when your PC boots. I already had GDM installed and working so I just did the GDM Install (for Intrepid the path is /usr/share/xsessions). You’ll need the enlightenment.desktop file which, if you installed to the default location, is in /usr/local/share/xsessions. Just copy that file into the /usr/share/xsessions folder then log out. Hit the Sessions button at the login window and select Enlightenment. Should be good to go.

Needless to mention, after you run the autoconf script, you can change your CFLAGS in the Makefile. DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH USING GCC CFLAGS. If you are familiar, I also assume you know where to get your CFLAGS, if not, the usual sources have them.

Again, don’t edit your CFLAGS if you don’t know what this does or how to use it. e17 will not run or might have adverse effects on your system if you specify incorrect CFLAGS.

I take no reponsibility for your install.

e17 is lightening fast and it works great too. If you have 2-3 hours then I recommend this (you can probably do it a lot faster but this is a pretty good time to set aside, just for playing with it if nothing else).

Keep in mind that e17 is also technically experimental software, and that tons of work is always being done on it. You can repeat this build and install process however often you want.