Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16 • Hacker News Board

Re: Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16

#101

Post by antisol » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 2:22 PM UTC

pino83 wrote: post #96

antisol wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hey Carsten! o/ Haha, you beat me to it. Basically the same example.

This is maybe because it's quite hard to find some?! ^^

more "just the best, first example that springs to mind" - Great minds something something.

Re: Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16

#102

Post by prmoustache » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 2:35 PM UTC

TD-Linux wrote: post #84

prmoustache wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used E17 for a while and the killer feature for me were independent virtual desktops accross monitors, meaning switching virtual desktop would only switch it on the monitor your focus was on. I ultimately switched back to KDE despite that ergonomic advantage because it crashed too often and then to Gnome because KDE also crashed too often. Gnome has been rock solid ever since.

Funnily enough, KDE got this feature yesterday: https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/merge_requests/8602

Awesome! I might try it again, tbh I have KDE on one computer but I don't use it much as my muscle memory is very gnomy and I haven't taken the time to tried to switch back in long term and I admit until hearing about that very little strong incentive to do so.

Re: Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16

#103

Post by somat » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 2:39 PM UTC

"Sadly, the hang was deterministic"

No, no, you rejoice, a deterministic bug is the best sort of bug. because now you have a test case and a solid method to know when it is fixed. The sad bugs are the ones you can't find a test case for.

I also got a bittersweet chuckle out of how the author considers it a lightweight environment, I mean, they are not wrong, but think of how far we have fallen when e, the ultimate bling desktop environment is considered lightweight.

Re: Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16

#104

Post by prmoustache » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC

pino83 wrote: post #97

prmoustache wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used E17 for a while and the killer feature for me were independent virtual desktops accross monitors, meaning switching virtual desktop would only switch it on the monitor your focus was on. I ultimately switched back to KDE despite that ergonomic advantage because it crashed too often and then to Gnome because KDE also crashed too often. Gnome has been rock solid ever since.

I know that people never want to hear such remarks... At least I never want... But I risk being the idiot anyways: KDE/Plasma doesn't crash here so often. I've seen it actually happening in the last years. Unfortunately!!!! Maybe two or three times... And then, it just restarted in a matter of a second. It did not affect anything. No running apps crashed. Just the task bar and the desktop went away for a second. How…

That experience was almost 20years ago, between 2006 and 2009 (I had to check linkedin because I only remember which employer I was working for) so based on wikipedia it was still KDE 4 wich was very unstable.

I tried a few times KDE 5 over the years out of curiosity then more recently KDE6. I have it on one computer but I rarely use it as it is the gaming machine and I very rarely play videogames. The thing is I got so used to the ergonomy and shortcuts of gnome and i3/sway that whenever I use KDE I need either a lot of time to get used to the default keyboard shortcuts and layout and/or I need to take time to modify/configure it. But since I have been fairly happy with gnome and sway I don't really have much insentive to switch again. No hater really.

Re: Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16

#105

Post by pino83 » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 2:43 PM UTC

wink wrote: post #95

pino83 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't Enlightenment something that just looked good in screenshots (compared to Win XP or even earlier ones)? I love desktop environments that look nice, I love effects and animations, if done well, and I love to be able to customize things (KDE/Plasma is doing a really good job in that regard imho). But Enlighenment? Whenever some screenshots excited me, I gave it another try for some hours, and then went back to K…

People have different tastes and opinions, and I don't remember how GNOME looked in 1998, but KDE 1? 2? wasn't so great imho (saying that as a huge fan of plasma, and intermittent KDE user for the last 25y). I used enlightenment for a bit and was very happy with it - just like some things on a desktop at home don't matter, but do on a laptop. I've more than once mangled i3 and gnome or xfce or kde together to have th…

> KDE 1?

Yeah, compared to Win 95 at least, it looked interesting in a positive way...

Problem was: Whenever you clicked on something, some message box appeared, with some one-line error message that contained the word "unknown" or "unexpected"... :)

Re: Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16

#106

Post by kogasa240p » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 2:44 PM UTC

Oh wow didn't expect someone my age to try out Enlightenment. Every so often I try to use Enlightenment (either e16/moksha or the latest version) but I always leave because it requires Connman and setting it up properly is a pain imo. Might try it again because of this blogpost.

Re: Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16

#107

Post by pino83 » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 2:46 PM UTC

prmoustache wrote: post #104

pino83 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that people never want to hear such remarks... At least I never want... But I risk being the idiot anyways: KDE/Plasma doesn't crash here so often. I've seen it actually happening in the last years. Unfortunately!!!! Maybe two or three times... And then, it just restarted in a matter of a second. It did not affect anything. No running apps crashed. Just the task bar and the desktop went away for a second. How…

That experience was almost 20years ago, between 2006 and 2009 (I had to check linkedin because I only remember which employer I was working for) so based on wikipedia it was still KDE 4 wich was very unstable. I tried a few times KDE 5 over the years out of curiosity then more recently KDE6. I have it on one computer but I rarely use it as it is the gaming machine and I very rarely play videogames. The thing is I got…

KDE 4 was indeed a huge mess... All 4.x version. Even if every changelog had the sound of "Now the glitches are fixed; you can now start using it". It never was...

Re: Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16

#108

Post by breton » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 2:47 PM UTC

somat wrote: post #103

"Sadly, the hang was deterministic" No, no, you rejoice, a deterministic bug is the best sort of bug. because now you have a test case and a solid method to know when it is fixed. The sad bugs are the ones you can't find a test case for. I also got a bittersweet chuckle out of how the author considers it a lightweight environment, I mean, they are not wrong, but think of how far we have fallen when e, the ultimate bl…

> because now you have a test case and a solid method to know when it is fixed.

And where is fun in that? Where are now the nights in trying to reproduce it? Where are the doubts in the moments of rest "have i really fixed it, or is it still there"? Boring.

Re: Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16

#109

Post by antisol » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 2:50 PM UTC

pino83 wrote: post #94

antisol wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a lot of cases, configurability is just a workaround for the issue that devs were unable to implement sth that just works 'fine'. No - You're making the assumption that everyone wants everything to be the same. Which is the same faulty assumption responsible for so many horrible horrible user interface choices made since smartphones became a thing. For instance, there's a setting in enlightenment to allow you to…

Well, I explicitly said that I dislike Gnome for that. Sure, there are switches that are fine for actual customization, in order to actually adapt to personal preferences instead of work around technical weaknesses. I love how configurable Plasma is. When I read further, about your scrollbar example, I wasn't sure if I would consider that a good example for your point or for my point... ^^ Anyways... Maybe it's a cor…

  > personal preferences instead of work around technical weaknesses

These are the same thing. Your personal preference is my technical weakness. Everybody has different requirements. The scrollbar is a great example: There might be a use-case for the (absolutely abysmal IMO) disappearing scrollbar pattern gnome wants to push on people. Maybe it's screen real estate. Having a scrollbar on a tiny screen could be argued as a technical weakness (and the mobile UI crowd did just that). But I don't have a screen real estate shortage on my 5760x1080 workspace. And people with certain mobility or perhaps vision issues might find the disappearing scrollbar to be completely unusable. It's actually an excellent example of my point. - there's no way to implement something as simple as scrollbars that will make everyone happy. AND THIS IS FINE! and good! as long as the user can choose.

  > What you describe sounds exactly like what I would do, but I would start Dolphin instead

Then it's not "exactly like" what I would do at all - you'd take your hand off your keyboard and switch to your mouse to use a graphical file manager tool. And you'd wait for however long dolphin takes to start and enumerate the thousand files in that directory, and you'd watch your disk spin and your ram usage shoot up while it previews all the image files and videos in the directory, and counts items in the subdirectories. And then you'd wait while vlc starts up and click around to control that. Meanwhile I've already done 'typop cat_s' in the software I already had running and am half way through viewing the video without my hand leaving my keyboard.

  > On the other hand: Here I can start arbitrary applications. For a LO-spreadsheet, LO would start! For a Blender model, Blender would start!

Um........... wow! I guess. That's pretty revolutionary! Starting programs! Gee, I guess it must not have been possible to start programs from a terminal since before GUIs were a thing! and xdg-open is not a thing, either. This seems like a bizarro-world argument to me.

  > VLC starts so quickly

VLC absolutely does not start as quickly as terminology can pop up a preview. And it especially can't do it as seamlessly as terminology. Notice how you're starting a thousand different things in your examples? Yeah, I'm just doing all that from a single program. One that I already had running. It's fantastic. The only time I need to start a different program is if EFL doesn't support that filetype. And then it's trivial to do what you would do with xdg-open or libreoffice or blender.

  > that's far away from my taste how a system should behave... Maybe I'm just too old

No, I feel you - it is (intentionally!) a bit obnoxious. But it's also a fun, makes me chuckle all the time. To each their own. Sort of like the user preferences thing: You might not like it, but that doesn't mean nobody could ever want it.

Re: Fixing a 20-year-old bug in Enlightenment E16

#110

Post by azalemeth » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 2:55 PM UTC

somat wrote: post #103

"Sadly, the hang was deterministic" No, no, you rejoice, a deterministic bug is the best sort of bug. because now you have a test case and a solid method to know when it is fixed. The sad bugs are the ones you can't find a test case for. I also got a bittersweet chuckle out of how the author considers it a lightweight environment, I mean, they are not wrong, but think of how far we have fallen when e, the ultimate bl…

The author is 21 (which I find incredibly impressive) and is using a DE that was written when they were a baby.

It _is_ lightweight in that context. I also love the fact that XaoS knowledge is useful in the context of "real software" programming!