OS Wars

Dreamlinux is one of the most beautiful Linux distros out there. It was originally meant for low-end PCs (it uses Xfce), but there is also a beta version with Beryl and AIGLX. It’s based on Morphix, Elive, Debian, and Kanotix.

Programs

DL comes with, among others, OpenOffice.org, aMSN, Icedove (aka Thunderbird), Firefox (with Java, Flash 9, and multi-media plugins), GimpShop, XMMS, Gxine, Audacity, Gnomebaker, Kino, AviDemux, Xdvdshrink, and MPlayer. I would have liked Gaim instead of aMSN but I was very happy that OpenOffice.org was included instead of AbiWord. It also comes with ntfs-3g, so you can access your Windows partitions. And since Dreamlinux is Debian-based, you can add thousands more programs using apt-get.

GUI

Dreamlinux has a beautiful interface. It is a little reminiscent of OS X’s, but it is distinctly different. It’s definitely NOT a carbon-copy of Apple’s operating system, which I think is good. It has a zooming dock (similar to Apple’s), but it has menus at the top of the screen, so it combines the best of both. Also on the top toolbar is a XMMS controller, so you can start and pause it whenever you want.

Minimal Requirements

DL is definitely NOT a resource hog. It ran on my VirtualBox setup with only 128 MB of RAM, and it installed fine on a 4 GB hard drive (also virtually).

Installation

DL has some work to do. If you want to install it, there is a tutorial at the official site. It will install off of a live CD.

External Links

Homepage: http://dreamlinux.com.br/
Download: Multimedia Edition, Multimedia Edition w/ Beryl-AIGLX, Torrent
Screenshots: Official, OS Wars: