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Bodhi Linux 3.2 Promises Clearer Path to Enlightenment

Bodhi Linux 3.2.0 is an update to the Bodhi Linux 3.x series and features key kernel and desktop improvements.

It is a different kind of Linux distro. Its developers refer to it as the "Enlightened Desktop," because it draws its energy from the Enlightenment desktop.

Enlightenment started as a project to build a window manager for X11 in 1996. It became something much more than a window manager -- it grew into a desktop environment in its own right. The Enlightenment Project is currently version 17, known as E17, and the Bodhi crew recently forked it.

This release of Bodhi uses the Moksha desktop. Both the distro name and its desktop moniker are Sanskrit terms. "Bodhi" means awakening or enlightenment. "Moksha" means emancipation, liberation or release.

Bodhi is one of a few Linux distros embracing the Enlightenment environment. Enlightenment is used in the Manjaro, Macpup and Elive distros, among others.

Until recently, Bodhi also ran the Enlightenment desktop, but the Bodhi developers lost faith in seemingly stalled advancements and misdirections from the Enlightenment community and forked it.

Bodhi Revisited

I last looked at this distro last year. I was very impressed with Bodhi back then. The latest version was released last month, and the improvements make Bodhi an even better computing environment now.

The project takes a minimalist approach by offering modularity, high levels of customization and choice of themes. In addition to basic 32- and 64-bit systems, Bodhi maintains designated ISO images for Chromebooks and legacy machines.

Moksha version 0.2.0 is a continuation of the Enlightenment 17 desktop. That is when the forking occurred. The latest version of the Enlightenment Compositing Window Manager and Desktop Shell is 0.18.7 or E18.

Moksha consists of the back porting of bug fixes and will include features from future Enlightenment releases, as well as the removal of half finished or broken things E17 contained, according to one of Bodhi's primary developers, Jeff Hoogland.

Making the fork to Moksha from E17 was "a big step for the Bodhi project. Only time will tell if it is a good one or a bad one," he said.