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Today I'd like to look at the newest release from the geniuses down in Brazil who show how to put together a wonderful Linux distribution with everything enabled out of the box in a very lightweight package.
DreamLinux 2.2MMGL uses the Xfce4 window manager, and as the letters MM indicate, this is a Linux distribution (also commonly referred to as a distro) that has multimedia capabilities ready to go, both in the liveCD and in the full install.
I initially tried this out in vmware-server; after about two minutes I knew I had to burn the ISO to disk and install it on my test machine--it is that good.
The installer is very easy to work with; you go to system (top left menu) and click on DreamLinux Installer, and are then greeted with a single large menu that is divided into three sections: the top section is the user, root info, with the added plus of being able to create as many users as you want from the get-go; the central section allows you to specify which partitions you want to install onto, and what file systems you wish to use via a left-click drop down menu, and the bottom section allows you to install GRUB on the MBR, on the boot partition, on an existing GRUB, or not at all--the third option was especially helpful as I already (as noted above) had Wolvix installed on the first partition.
If you are going to dual boot your machine with DreamLinux, then best install the other Linux first, preferably using GParted to partition the whole shebang ahead of time--DreamLinux comes with Qparted and cfdisk, neither of which are very intuitive or easy to use, so spare yourself the hassle and use GParted. And the bit about installing on an existing GRUB is really a boon as well--no editing text files by hand (in this case the grub.conf file).
Since Wolvix comes with GParted as its default disk partitioner, I rebooted into Wolvix and partitioned the sections for DreamLinux, then rebooted into the DreamLinux installer disk; it was all the work of a few minutes, and then I was ready to install. GParted also comes as an ISO disk that you can burn, so if you don't plan on doing it the way I did, you can always go that route.
The installation was fairly rapid, and then I was rebooting into a nice dark blue Xfce4 window environment; the DreamLinux desktop is really decked out from the get-go, with all the media apps already set up in a virtual clone of the Mac OS X dock, complete with the magnification effect when you mouse over the various items. Very nifty, and for such a slow machine, a nice bit of the shiny. Fluxbox is the other window manager installed.
The test machine I installed it on has a really archaic ATI Radeon card (340M), and normally I just go with the vesa (generic) drivers; snooping around in the DreamLinux control panel (DCP-panel or some such) and I found something labeled displays--by entering the name of my card, and answering a few other questions about Xorg, the keyboard, automatic monitor recognition and the like, I soon had the best graphics I have ever seen this card display--truly amazing.
As it's built on top of Debian Etch, downloading updates are done through apt-get in the command line, or through the Synaptic Package manager (much the same as in Ubuntu); additionally, there are repository mirrors spread throughout the world, so updating and upgrading are truly minor affairs. After installing the initial system, I started up Synaptic, and while checking out the repositories that are enabled, I noticed that all the non-free ones had been set up--no need to add repositories.
The choice of packages included in the initial install mean that you can set up this for someone who has slow or even no internet connection and it is ready to go right off the bat; this is the multimedia box bar none. The very best apps for playing videos, music, ripping, burning, streaming mp3 server, mixing, it's all there.
The only tiny complaint I have is that when the boot screen comes up, it hangs for a short moment as it negotiates an internet connection, but considering that I'm likely to leave this machine running with some speakers hooked up to it to serve as my media player, it's really almost not worth mentioning.
The only true disadvantage I can see in this blockbuster distro is that now that I have both it and Wolvix installed on my test machine, there really is no test machine anymore. It looks like I'll have to wipe Ubuntu off my main computer if I want to try a new distro install, though I do have an external hard drive I can hook up to it with Ubuntu on it, for when Gutsy Gibbon is released. Since Linspire decided to go to the dark side, there really is no point in using their Click 'N Run software repository--if I want something like that, then PC-BSD has all the goods, and it's totally free from the likes of MS and their FUD.
Update: Oopsie! In a rush to get this out, I forgot to mention that in the next couple of days I will be looking at some other very lightweight distros, including one of my all time faves (now with Xfce), LinuxMint; also slated for review are Slax, and FreeSBIe. Just one final point--Xfce comes with a very nice bit of alarm software--I think rogun was looking for that. Cheers!