So I've just booted up DreamLinux from the LiveCD for the first time.

If you decide to switch from Windows to Linux, DreamLinux might be a viable option, though there are some snags you will encounter straight away.

The first thing I noticed is the keyboard layout is American, or perhaps even Brazillian. With the LiveCD I can't find a place to change this. It's kind of annoying.

Another gripe is the Mac-Like taskbar launcher, called "Engage". At first it looks pretty cool, but after a while you realise it's really just eye-candy that prevents you from getting anything done because you're trying in vain to get rid of it. You can set the bar to autohide, but this doesn't really help anything because the windows that you want to maximise still don't go down over the whole screen. Here's a few screenshots to help you understand the problem.
Oh, and by the way, in trying to take a screen shot I encountered even more problems. HOW THE HELL DO YOU TAKE A SCREEN SHOT!? Damn, in Gnome it's just the Print Screen key, which takes the shot and asks you where to save it. XFce, doesn't seem so simple. One option is to open GIMP, the image editor in Linux, and use that to capture a screen shot. It seems fairly .. long winded.

So anyway, here's how it's supposed to look, when you're hovering over the bar, everything looks pretty, all very nice.


If you want to auto-hide the bar you can, but don't think it will increase your screen space for other windows. Oh no, the windows don't go further than the bar will allow. So I ask, what the hell is the point in auto-hide?



Then, if your windows are maximised, and you want to select something from the bar, don't think you'll be able to see the name of what you're selecting! Oh no, that would make life waaaay too uninteresting and predictable.


Also you can't click and drag on the desktop, meaning you can't select multiple icons/shortcuts unless you shift/ctrl click. Lame.


So those are the main problems I've encountered within the first few minutes of running DreamLinux.

On to the good, perhaps?
There are some nice aspects of DreamLinux.

• One, for some people, might be the fact that XMMS, a media player for Linux, starts up and sits quietly in your system tray until you want to use it.


• It comes shipped with Firefox 2 as the default browser.


• The buttons in webpages and the desktop are more 3d and windows/mac-like. In Gnome everything seemed very flat and grey and, well, boring. XFce attempts to be a bit more eye pleasing


• It comes with Flash Player 9 already installed, something Ubuntu lacks


• As it's Debian based, the transition from Ubuntu to DreamLinux in terms of the terminal will be nice and smooth


• It has a very Mac-Like feel to it, the skins, the colours, the launchers. Windows and Mac users would probably feel very at home with how the desktop looks


• Right-click on the desktop brings up the Applications menu


• Middle-click on the desktop brings up a list of open windows to switch to. That's pretty snazzy


• sudo apt-get remove engage -- Ahh bliss. Windows using all the available screen space!

So that's my preliminary report on DreamLinux. Maybe with an install it would be more configurable, but as it stands from the LiveCD, I think for now, I shall stick with Ubuntu.

If you are moving from Windows and have a bit of computer knowledge, this might be a nice desktop for you, but if you've had experience elsewhere with Linux, you'll probably be slightly annoyed at the usability aspect. Although once I got rid of that damn engage bar I did calm down slightly, I'm still highly pissed off that I can't change the keyboard layout.

Rating: B-

Labels: DreamLinux, Linux, Review