Elive 2.0 Brings Enlightenment to the Desktop

by Joe Brockmeier - Mar. 05, 2010Comments (0)

Elive Box Image

All good things come to those who wait. For example, the Elive Linux distribution 2.0 release. It's been nearly three years since the last major release of Elive, but the project has finally gotten the 2.0 release out the door with tons of improvements and new features.

Elive is a Debian-based Linux distro that uses the Enlightenment e17 desktop environment. The distro is well-suited for older computers and netbooks, as it has minimal hardware requirements. Elive can get by on a 100MHz CPU and 64MB of RAM, though the project recommends at least 128 MB of RAM and a 300MHz CPU. No 3D card required to get the full effects of the Enlightenment GUI.

The distro comes on a live CD, so you can just pop it into your drive and go. It's also installable, so if you like what you see, you can install Elive on your computer and use it full-time. Elive is Debian-based, but comes with its own custom installer that many users will probably find easier to work with. Users who are running older versions of Elive can use the CD to perform a system upgrade in place. You can also boot from USB for Netbooks and other devices without a CD-ROM drive. Though I haven't tried this, the release notes mention a "migrate" feature so users of other Linux distros can move some of their settings to Elive if they decide to stick with it after trying the live CD.

The 2.0 release includes a number of new "Configurators," to configure system settings like the touchpad and so on. The distro also features a special "Nurse" mode to perform system recovery or to install custom kernels on the system. Even though Elive is tailored for resource-constrained systems, it also features a custom kernel for x86 systems with more than 4GB of RAM, so you can make the most of beefy systems as well.

Elive downloads are available from several mirrors. If you're looking for a new and interesting Linux distro to hop to, check out Elive 2.0.