Hello GNUers,
I've installed Dreamlinux ( www.dreamlinux.com.br/english/index.html )
2.2 Multimedia Edition, which is bundled with this month's Linux For You
(LFY) ( www.linuxforu.com ) magazine (GNUbies, please try to get it). By
naming it Multimedia Edition, they've really meant it. It plays all kinds
of multimedia files (mp3, wma, mod, mpg, mpe, avi, asf, rm, wmv etc.)
that I have, out-of-the-box, and that too excellently... no jerks,
nothing. It has both MPlayer & GXine and Xmms, and a host of other
multimedia & graphics apps, and the basic internet and office
applications. With my earlier Zenwalk 2.6 (which also had XFCE 4.3.9x,
but Xorg 6.9), I was not able to see any movie/video properly. But now,
thanks to Dreamlinux 2.2 (which also have XFCE 4.3.9x, but Xorg 7.1),
with my PIII 533MHz, 196MB RAM m/c, I am able to have a complete
multimedia powerhouse.
Not that Dreamlinux 2.2 doesn't have any issues. First is that Grub still
has some problems with the XFS filesystem in the distro (whereas it is
not presnt in OpenSuse 10.1, with which I've installed Grub on XFS
filesystem). So it doesn't let you have XFS filesystem for the native
root partition. So I had to be content with Ext3. For some reason, I
still believe, XFS is faster that Ext3 or ReiserFS. Secondly, since it is
based on Debian, the boot-up time is 1 min. more than Zenwalk 2.6 (based
on Slackware)... Zenwalk 2.6 boots in just under 40 sec., while this one
takes a bit more than 1 min, 40 sec. No... both have CUPS disabled and
almost similar services/daemons, if not same one to one. Here major
difference, which I can see is that Zenwalk is Slackware based and has
XFS filesystem while Dreamlinux is Debian based and has Ext3
filesystem. So, booting wise, Zenwalk (& ofcourse Slackware) is faaast.
And the services enabling/disabling tool was also better in Zenwalk. And
don't know why they chose aMSN instead of Gaim for IM.
BTW, XFCE 4.4 (also in 4.3.9x) has an 'Autostarted Applications'
tool, which is much easier to use / better located than what GNOME has
for the same purpose. I have enabled 'mount my MM partition' (partitions
don't automount by default in this distro, you have to right-click and
select mount, but which is instantaneous) & Xmms on launch, so that I
just have to turn on the system, and after it boots, it starts playing
what I had in Xmms while I turned off last time, just like a music
system.
Overall, Dreamlinux 2.2 is a collector's GNU/Linux distro, since
it is a live distro, which has a very good graphical (7 step) installer.
And it installs fast too. And a 2GB partition would be enough for
installation. The whole installation on my PC took only around 15 mins.
This is one distro with 'out of the box' support for multimedia.
So, go ahead, get Dreamlinux and start having a multimedia
dream!
Zaheer M K
GNU/Linux user #351122
Registered at http://counter.li.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
http://ilug-cochin.org/pipermail/mailinglist_ilug-cochin.org/attachments/20070227/b5070078/attachment-0001.html
