Raspberry Pi Forums

Hello all

I received my Pi last week, and have been playing with it pretty much non-stop! I had been using Debian, but after reading reports of Arch being "faster", I decided to give it a shot. I wouldn't call myself a Linux noob - I've been using it on and off for over 10 years now - but I can honestly say that I have really had my hand held! Even distros like Debian still get you up & running with X and a desktop/window manager...! Arch is a bit of a shock to the system to say the least.

After much trying, compiling, re-compiling and giving up on compiling when I realised that binaries are already available, I have managed to get Enlightenment (e17) up & running under Arch. It does indeed feel a lot faster than the Debian distro, but that could just be placebo.

I've attached a screenshot of my current desktop. Pretty damn chuffed with myself at the moment, though some may consider it a minor achievement! I've been a bit of a fan of Enlightenment for a while now, and it's speed should suit the Pi. Really looking forward to X drivers for the GPU now; Enlightenment already runs fairly well, but it would fly with accelerated graphics.

Now to try and compile either xulrunner (firefox dependency, but no arm package) or chromium from source so I can have a decent browser- I have a feeling that chromium will take a while...



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Excellent stuff, I think the DirectFB guys are working on something similar, but obviously using DirectFB instead of X which would then be accelerated by the GPU.

keep up the good work!

This is the first I'm hearing of this project. Cool beans! Can it be crosscompiled?

There's no need to cross compile Enlightenment and it's libraries, as they're already in the community arch repo (which is enabled by default on the Pi distro). You just need a shedload of dependencies and an X server.

There were a few packages which I had to compile myself, and I'll probably upload the .pkg.tar.xz files when I get home. I'll see if I can put together some sort of quick walkthrough when I get back from work.

As for the Direct FB stuff mentioned, I haven't a clue about that!

Good Show!
Sounds like you are having fun and that is quite refreshing to hear.
Keep on trucking!

e16 works well on arch too (although it uses lots of Xorg CPU time in the background updating the window previews in the corner display)

I've installed Fluxbox (which I already use on my Arch/x86-running Eee 701SD netbook) on my Pi (Arch/ARM), and will play more with it once I sort out the Pi's power-supply problems (the dreaded "repeated keypresses" issue).

I haven't tried Enlightenment (though it looks "swish"!), but have you encountered problems with ugly fonts? The default Fluxbox theme in Arch/ARM looks hideous - I'll be transferring my FB themes from my Eee as soon as possible, but I wonder if I need to install/run a font server?

Glad you are enjoying your Pi and learning a lot . This is what it is all about.

teh_orph wrote:e16 works well on arch too (although it uses lots of Xorg CPU time in the background updating the window previews in the corner display)

To be honest, I'm not really sure what the difference between e16 and e17 is; I'll have to do some research. I've used Enlightenment in the past - a good while ago though - but I was never really interested in which version I was using...

tawalker wrote:I've installed Fluxbox (which I already use on my Arch/x86-running Eee 701SD netbook) on my Pi (Arch/ARM), and will play more with it once I sort out the Pi's power-supply problems (the dreaded "repeated keypresses" issue).

Yes, I also get that on occasion - very frustrating, since my PSU is an HTC phone charger, which is more than capable of delivering the power needed (rated at 5v 1A) and is not exactly a poor-quality £2 ebay purchase...

tawalker wrote:I haven't tried Enlightenment (though it looks "swish"!), but have you encountered problems with ugly fonts? The default Fluxbox theme in Arch/ARM looks hideous - I'll be transferring my FB themes from my Eee as soon as possible, but I wonder if I need to install/run a font server?

Not really; I have noticed that some of the fonts look a little too big, but I'm sure there's a setting somewhere to adjust that. I did install the package ttf-dejavu, as there are apparently no fonts installed by default (this is probably normal, but it's the first time I've set up everything from scratch).

One of the optional packages was a collection of themes from exchange.enlightenment.org, so I've already changed it from the default theme. That's one of the packages I'll be uploading, because it's only in the AUR - there are no pre-built versions available and it took ages to build the 200~MB package on my Pi; probably not as bad as compiling a kernel, but it still took around 30-45 minutes.

oztrailrider wrote:Glad you are enjoying your Pi and learning a lot . This is what it is all about.

Arch is completely different to what I'm used to. It's still Linux, and it's still basically the "same", but it doesn't hold your hand or do anything for you - you don't even get a normal user account by default, let alone sudo. Even now with Enlightenment running, there's still no file manager and I had to install xterm just to get a basic terminal. I've been tempted to try it out in the past, but I've usually stuck to distros like Debian, Fedora, Xubuntu/Lubuntu, crunchbang, etc, as I didn't really see any benefit in setting up everything myself (btw, vanilla Ubuntu can go suck an egg - I hate the UI!). Plus with Debian-based distros there's the ubiquity of .DEB packages and apt.

The Pi, however, is a different matter; I can see the value in setting up a minimal system from scratch in this case.

blc wrote:

teh_orph wrote:e16 works well on arch too (although it uses lots of Xorg CPU time in the background updating the window previews in the corner display)

To be honest, I'm not really sure what the difference between e16 and e17 is; I'll have to do some research. I've used Enlightenment in the past - a good while ago though - but I was never really interested in which version I was using...

Yeah me neither tbh
I think one is the old version that they have continuously improved (e16) and the other one (e17) is written from scratch, or something. e16 is what I remember as Enlightenment from my 2002 Linux days.

Arch is completely different to what I'm used to. It's still Linux, and it's still basically the "same", but it doesn't hold your hand or do anything for you - you don't even get a normal user account by default, let alone sudo.

That was probably the main "draw" for me - last summer, when I was choosing a distro for my Eee 701, I decided I wanted a system which wouldn't just dump lots of "bloat" on the main drive (my Eee has an 8GB SSD), and wouldn't weigh down the limited hardware with GNOME, etc. Arch gave me that flexibility, and it runs like a dream on the Eee, so it was a "no-brainer" for me to go with Arch/ARM for the RasPi - especially as I can transfer across what knowledge I have gained from Arch/x86.

(Oh, and as far as the PSU problem goes: I've just taken delivery of a Nokia AC-10X, which folk here seem to be saying is a good choice for the Pi (generous with the power-levels). Fingers crossed...)

I've now posted up instructions in the Absolute Beginners section: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... f=5&t=6000