The Dormant Are Awakened: Elive 2.0 Topaz

Elive has started development again after quite a long time sleeping (3 years)!  I have to download the ISO right away!



On their site, they describe Elive as:

      A very stable system that will continue to run day after day without problems. The Enlightenment desktop is ultra-fast and perfectly stable with no random errors or surprises. There are no viruses, trojans, spyware, adware, or any similar nuisance. Elive is a secure and serious system.

I was greatly pleased to know that this Belgian, Debian-based distro using E-16 at that time is now moving forward.  It also comes now with E-17!

Concerning its development philosophy, the site states that:

        Elive is made with and for pleasure. Things designed with pleasure are worlds better than the things designed due to a workers obligation.

I must agree with those words.  I remember that Elive impressed me with its performance, design, and eye candy.  Everything worked off the CD, the visual aspect was very artistic and its animated wallpapers made me drool!

What does this Elive 2.1.23 (Alpha release of Elive 2 Topaz) bring?

• The final stable release of Enlightenment 17!
• Improvements in E17 like "focus remember", or an emodule for productivity (style pomodoro with window controls)
• Composite and transparencies even in older computers without 3D accelaration, and other good features even when not in use
• Very efficient and fast overall system
• Allows for better resolution in older computers where it was once not possible to play high quality videos due to resources required (includes HD videos in h264)
• Perfect screen sincronization in video playback.
• Kernel 3.2.0 supporting older computers, which means that new computers will be supported too
• Recent and updated applications
• Lots of packages like libreoffice ready for giving a complete suite to the end-users
• Extremely useful new tools made by Elive, like: bkp, waitfor, elivepaste, showmyip, etc...
• A enlightened terminal with a great demo

 It sounds good, doesn't it?

Concerning the target users of this distro, there is a warning on the site, though:

      Elive is not made for newbies. Elive is not made for experienced people. Elive is not made for enterprises or personal user. Elive is art. It is simply for the people who appreciate it and want to use it. Feel free to try Elive, because only you decide what you want in this world!

Those are refreshing words in a world threatened to be Metrofied!  :P
Now, will Elive be for you?