Dreamlinux has been added to the sad list of the dead distributions today. The Brazilian distribution had released version 1.0 in 2006 and version 5.0 that was released this January was apparently the last one to exist.

Dreamlinux was not just another Linux distribution. I know it very well cause I was a Dreamlinux user for over a year. It was an XFCE fast and beautiful distribution based on Debian, using the testing repositories, providing the cool blend of relatively latest with relatively stable packages that only Debian testing repos offer.

This is not any kind of exclusiveness of course as there are many distributions that use Debian testing. What made Dreamlinux stand apart was its serious persistence to develop technologies that will make the system more user friendly. It was a distribution that offered a fantastic one-click install system at times when other now-famous distributions didn’t even thought of anything similar yet.

Dreamlinux offered codecs, video drivers, flash plugins and many development libraries pre-installed making it ideal for use on offline computers, or just very fast to install and use right away.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS0nb4kXbCM[/youtube]

Beauty? You bet! Dreamlinux was maybe the most beautiful XFCE distribution out there. It used its own icon theme, window manager and gtk theme to offer the optical coherence and beauty that should come with every operating system that wants its users happy and pleased. These are the only things that are still available for download on Dreamlinux website…

So what happened? I don’t know but I suppose that the decision to discontinue Dreamlinux was the resultant of the usual reasons that include lack of user interest, lack of developers and contributors, lack of resources, lack of free time etc.

We are surely going from the period of distribution plethora to a period of a great cleanup where only the distributions that have something really different to offer will stay alive. The case here is that I believe Dreamlinux had something to offer. It was a fast, beautiful Debian based distribution that showed to the user it cared about him/her and the user felt this on every click. Of course you can get almost the same results with a Debian XFCE install where you would add the testing repos and the Dreamlinux themes and install the drivers and codecs etc, but Dreamlinux was ready to get and use right away. Everything was tailord and carefully chosen for you the user. This is the first time ever, I feel I am going to really miss a distribution 🙁