Review: DreamLinux 2.2 MM GL Edition

coolpcguy · 21-12-2007, 11:17 PM

DreamLinux is a Brazilian distro, based on Morphix, and Debian. The Brazilian connection is evident from the Live CD screen:

Dreamlinux runs with Xfce as the default window manager, and it is full of style cues from the Mac OS X environment, the most notable nod being the Application Panel, which is handled by an independent version of Enlightenment’s Engage. The distro comes with a simple set of applications suited for the average user, including OpenOffice.org 2.0.4, IceWeasel(Unbranded FireFox) 1.5, Icedove (unbranded Thunderbird) as an email client, and aMSN 0.97 for instant messaging.The LiveCD booted up pretty quickly, but remember that this is on a VM.
You can continue to working on the Live CD, or can install it. Finding the Install button is a bit tricky, as it’s not present on the desktop, neither on the dock, but under System->Install DreamLinux(which I missed, have to admit).
Unlike other distros or even operating systems, which require to click 5-6 “Next” buttons, DreamLinux has only 1 button, that’s “Setup”! This is no dream:

For partitioning you can make use of CFdisk or QTPart.

However I noticed a strange quirk: After allocating the space, I noticed that 552 MB was marked as already used! I don’t know why this was so, I thought this was because of VMWare, I tried it out in VirtualBox, and lo! Faced the same quirk again. After filling in details like user name, password and root password, I clicked on install button, there you go, it started installing. Installation finished real fast, and upon completion I was prompted to exit the Installer, and boot the system.
Here’s a screeni of the BootLoader:

The desktop looks really nice and neat, and the Mac OSX look is evident in the Engage dock

As I mentioned earlier, DreamLinux uses Xfce as the DE, and comes packed in with a lot of very useful applications, more so at the Multimedia end, with a CD Ripper(GRip), DVD Ripper(DVD Rip), Media Players(GXine, Mplayer), Audio Player with out of the box MP3 support(XMMS), Audio Editor(Audacity)

DreamLinux also features a unique “EasyInstall” feature, where you can download some of the most popular applications like Firefox, Google Earth, Opera, Nvu, Last.fm client and even the ATI/Nvidia drivers by launching the Easy-Install application and just clicking the app. You’ll just get a message to confirm installation and uninstallation of the application and that’s it! It’s that hassle free! And of course for more application, Synaptec and apt-get comes as a part of the distro for easy installation/upgradation.

DreamLinux comes named as DreamLinux 2.2 MM GL edition, in reference to Beryl(version 0.2) which comes installed but isn’t Activated by default. For this you’ll have to install NVIDIA/ATI drivers, after which, enabling Beryl is simple, as the below screeni would show:

Since Xfce is used as the DE, FIle Manager used is Thunar, which is nice, but it’s nowhere near Konqueror both in features as well as bloat!

DreamLinux also comes with the MkDistro LiveMaster application, which allows you to remaster DreamLinux, add/remove applications that you need, don’t need, set a custom background, and once done, create the ISO image and distribute it. Due to time constraints I wasn’t able to test this out, but you can get more details here.
My experience with DreamLinux was good, but certain things left me befuddled. Firstly, in the Live CD mode, the network isn’t started automatically. Furthermore, even IP assignment by DHCP wasn’t successful automatically. New users would definitely be at a crossroads with this. After installing, the IP address was assigned successfully by DHCP, but still all was not rosy. DreamLinux was unable to mount any of my Samba shares. Now the network/permissions wouldn’t be a problem since I was able to mount the shares on openSUSE10.3, which is again installed in a VM.
Some minor grouses I had was, the IM client(aMSN) which supports only MSN protocol, and lack of a screen capture utility.
All in all, DreamLinux is a Linux multimedia fan’s dream come true. With out-of-the-box MP3 support, loads of useful multimedia applications, a good amount of eye-candy and all the basics that you expect from a Linux distro, DreamLinux is fantastic.