14 DAY TRIAL // Elive, a Linux distribution based on Debian that uses the Enlightenment desktop environment to provide a unique user experience, is now at version 2.4.6 and the developers are getting closer to a stable release.
Elive is a different kind of operating system and it will require the user to be a little open-minded because this distro provides an interesting desktop experience. There are very few OSes out there that even share the same kind of desktop, so it's easy to say that it provides something unique.
The Enlightenment DE is mostly responsible for this, but it's also the devs’ merit since they managed to make all the necessary changes to turn this into something special.
One of the things really standing out is the actual desktop design, which doesn't respect the common user knowledge about how things should be. This means that the distro comes with a learning curve and that users need to learn, all over again, how some of the simplest things can be done.
It provides a refreshing view and lets us know that we don't have to be constrained too much about conservatism.
Elive uses Enlightenment in a unique way
The Elive devs are still adding features to the operating system and they are still making important adjustments, but they have been doing this for quite some time. They must be getting closer to the final version, but they first deal will all the problems and various bugs.
"This version of Elive includes a first selection of the packages that should be used in the next Stable version, we have not finished yet with the selection but there’s already a good amount of them included, there’s also nice tools created by elive that are meant to make your life much easier!, also, since the version of Reiser4 supports TRIM for SSD drives we updated the version of reiser4progs."
"Note that this development release doesn't include yet the proprietary drivers for now (Nvidia/fglrx) but the open-source drivers should detect your hardware and configure your system without problems," reads the official announcement.
The devs also say that it's not possible to boot from hard-disks, SDD trimming is now supported, users can now send emails from command line, and a number of new default applications have been added.
More details about this distribution can be found in the official announcement. You can download Elive 2.4.6 Beta right now from Softpedia.
This latest release is a lot more stable than the previous one, but it's still under development. If you want to test it, don't use a production machine for it.
