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"Many say, "MS Windows has won, and the Linux Desktop is dead!" Now the Linux Desktop is UNDEAD, and it has risen from its crypt in search of virgin blood. Mortal operating systems will cower before the beast that has been unleashed upon them. Dismiss the week and inferior, embrace the Evil and possess your Box with Evil Entity." As you can see, this isn't a vanilla Linux distribution. The developers of Evil Entity also have some distinct opinions about their distribution and their mainstream competition: Dave Martin: "Evil Entity is a distribution like no other! Its primary goal is to provide the best home or dorm-room desktop environment possible. "EvilE" is not a server distribution, nor a corporate workstation platform, it's simply the most fun and useful tool you can install on your PC! Now you can install Linux and be up and running, on-line, ripping MP3s, burning CD's, watching DVD's and TV, editing video, and creating 3D models in minutes. We are delivering an Operating System founded on integrity, principle, and the testosterone driven desire for the most powerful desktop experience possible coupled with the moral fortitude to never sell out to the mediocrity of corporate Linux. Evil Entity is targeted for the PC power user as well as the old school hacker that made Linux great. We provide the most intuitive desktop experience. A world away from Windows, we have been able to observe and learn from the failed desktop design of Windows and Windows-like environments. There is a better way." Does Evil Entity deliver on these lofty promises? Let's take look at what you need and what you get with Evil Entity DR 0.2.4f to begin. Requirements and Software Evil Entity Linux is designed for the power desktop user. As such, to get the most out of the distribution, you'll need to satisfy these system requirements: CPU : i686 The desktop is built around a tweaked version of the Enlightenment window manager using the Emelfm file manager. If you're looking for GNOME or KDE packages, you'll need to look elsewhere since Evil Entity doesn't really provide any. They have their reasons why too: "Evil Entity installs with a custom configured Enlightenment desktop and a best of breed application suite. We include robust support for multimedia, the most powerful file manager anywhere, Emelfm, which has been fully mime-typed to our applications and drag and drops between them. Other desktops besides Enlightenment are not and will not be supported, as they are by their own design inferior. We are also actively promoting our "Linux Apps not Gnome Apps!" campaign. Of course, we feel the same way about KDE in that it is not in the Open Source community's best interests to limit so many good applications to one specific desktop environment, and be dependent on so much bloat." As for the best of breed applications for the Evil Entity desktop, they include Mozilla 1.0 Browser and Email client Along with many other titles for instant messaging and other utilities, the system includes XFree86 4.2.0, the 2.4.17 Linux kernel and gcc 2.95.3. Installation Since Evil Entity is pre-configured for the power desktop GNU/Linux user, the installation routine is fairly simple. Other than having to partition your drive with cfdisk, the install is relatively non-technical. Once partitioned and formatted to ReiserFS by default, Evil Entity will copy its programs to your hard drive and then reboot. Upon reboot, you'll be prompted by the Evil Wizard setup scripts for some basic configuration options. You'll be prompted to create your user accounts, configure your network and then set up your X windows settings. Be sure to select Automajic when configuring your XFree86 setup to get the maximum resolution for your monitor and video card. If this doesn't suit you, you can always reconfigure XFree86 after the installation finishes. Once completed, you'll see a text based Linux prompt. If you want a graphic login, you'll have to install one yourself since none are included in the ISO packages. To launch the Evil Entity Desktop, log in as your user account and run the command "startx". The Desktop Experience: Goth is fun The first thing you'll be struck by when you launch the Evil Entity desktop is its gothic theme under Enlightenment 0.16.5. In fact, the Goth look is so prevalent, I had to ask developer Dave Martin what was up: "We have several reasons for the Goth look. First of all I think it looks good. Secondly, It lets people know that this isn't a blasphemous, corporate, sellout, monstrosity. Evil Entity is an aggressive, take no prisoners project that is truly different from all the others. Thirdly, it makes for a fun project. Besides without the Goth theme we wouldn't have our mascot Count Tuxulla. (shown in the upper right corner of this article) " I must admit, I was a little handicapped using Evil Entity at first because I'm a long-time GNOME user. That doesn't mean I didn't like the Enlightenment interface, it just took some getting used to. This is definitely not a Windows-like desktop running on a Linux kernel. In Figure A, you'll see the default desktop. Gkrellm, the all-purpose system monitor, launches by default along with the Enlightenment icon box and Pager. If you're unfamiliar with Enlightenment, you left click the mouse anywhere on the desktop to view your program menus, as shown in Figure B. When you minimize an open window, an icon for the application will appear in the Enlightenment icon box. (In Figure A, you can see 2 icons for Eterm and the Gimp residing in the icon box.). Figure A: The Default desktop you see once you "startx" Figure B: Enlightenment menus are accessed through left clicking the mouse on the desktop Gkrellm, in its default mode, monitors your CPU, network traffic and other system info as well as providing quick access buttons for mounting CD-ROMs and floppy disks. One minor oversight we found here was that we had to manually edit the /etc/fstab file to allow users other than root to mount CDs and floppies. We tried several of the applications to test the overall speed of the desktop environment and were impressed. Our test platform was a Dell 500 MHz Pentium III system with 128 MB RAM and even with many programs loaded, the system didn't slow noticeably. In Figure C, you can see Mozilla, the Gimp, Eterm, Bluefish HTML editor and XChat all running with Gkrellm monitoring. Figure C: The application choices are all top notch (At the time of this review, we didn't have the opportunity to test any high-end video viewing or editing software since our test system wasn't equipped with the necessary hardware. --the ed) Packages So what packaging method does Evil Entity Linux use? Currently, it supports Slackware packages using pkgtool, but promises a revamped version of this system coming soon. The new package management system will be called Mausoleum (continuing along the gothic motif). Mausoleum promises to provide "Full User Control, Dependence Checking, Install, Upgrade, Uninstall, Revert to Previous, Muti-Stage Scriptability with its own scripting language, Repackage, Integrity/Corruption Checking, fltk GUI, Live System Compatibility checking and Database logging, and More. The Mausoleum Package System is our interpretation of an Install, Uninstall, and Upgrade Management utility. Kind of like RPM on steroids. Its a Package Manager that by design empowers the user, not restricts them. Its design assumes you're smarter then it is, It will provide the system information and let you make the decisions. For example if you wanted to uninstall glibc it would warn you that your about the do something stupid that will break your system, but then let you do it. Mausoleum will flaunt new and unique features, a fast database, and really fast installs and uninstalls. Mausoleum is our next generation package manager and is due to be release with DR-0.3." We look forward to a follow up review highlighting these capabilities. Downsides? At this point in it's development, Evil Entity Linux has more promise of innovation than innovation itself. Enlightenment in its current release, doesn't support the Holy Grail of the major desktop environments: anti-aliased fonts. The result isn't ugly, but once you get use to anti-aliased fonts, not having them is a bit of an eyesore. That's not to say that Evil Entity hasn't done a good job in choosing great applications for the power desktop user. And Enlightenment, for all its eyecandy is still nice and fast, which is an improvement over some of the "bloated" desktop environments. If you're not aware of the current developments in the Enlightenment window manager, the next major release 0.17 promises to include anti-aliased font support as well as accelerated video support using Evas. When Enlightenment 0.17 is released and the Mausoleum packaging system is complete, Evil Entity Linux will definitely be worth checking out. In the meantime, it is still a nice addition to the Linux distribution pool since it stands out as an exception and not a rule, daring to be different, and not just for the sake of being different. Upsides One thing that Evil Entity Linux did really well is to provide the Emelfm file manager. If you haven't tried it, Emelfm is the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing of file managers. The simple two-paned interface reminded me of many other graphic shell file managers, but thanks to the complete list of file types defined in its configuration, the file manager is truly click and run capable, with little further configuration needed. This simply means that the application associated with the file type launch when you click on it. How many other Linux distributions do this for you ahead of time? And Emelfm is just flat out screaming fast. It's not the prettiest file manager I've seen, but it gets the job done incredibly well. Conclusion Evil Entity Linux is not a Halloween hoax. Far from it. I think it holds a lot of promise and is a fairly solid Linux distribution as it stands. Why does it stand out in the crowd? I'll let the Evil Entity developers explain: "Integrity and Vision! We are one of the only distributions not attempting to turn Linux into Windows. There are actually not very many distributions. You basically have Debian, Slackware, Red Hat, 60 or so Red Hat wannabes, and a few distributions like Lycoris and Lindows practically trying to create some kind of WindowsXP that runs on the Linux kernel. If the Windows way worked we wouldn't have so many people pining for something better. The Windows way made Microsoft a lot of money and that's what current commercial distributions are after. Evil Entity aims to do things the fastest, cleanest, and most powerful, way, not the way that will appeal to Windows users because its so familiar. Besides, I think newbies are coming to Linux for something more powerful, something more innovative, and something just plain better. In the quest for a newbie friendly Windows environment for Linux we got KDE and Gnome. Lets Get REAL!! They are the Windows interface implemented poorly. Newbies try it and say "Yeah it's nice but its not as refined as Windows". Why be one step behind Windows when they are headed in the wrong direction? Evil Entity aims not to be familiar, or easy to learn but powerful, and to do things a better way. Everything is put together because it works well together. It cuts out the fat but leaves the meaty, sweet center for all to enjoy." Although I may have said it differently, I don't
think I could have said it any better |
