The Dreamlinux Installation Process

1 - The DLI Menu

On the menu bar you can see the items About, Qparted (the new name of QtParted), Cfdisk and Exit. Clicking on the item
About will show you the following screen, and you can be aware of the "huge" team developing Dreamlinux.

Clicking on Qparted menu item will launch the QtParted application, with which you can partition, re-partition, or shrink an existing Windows partition, in order to make room for installing Dreamlinux on HDD.

Before you ask, we've chosen Qparted instead of Gparted due to some strange behavior Gparted showed during our tests. Gparted was apparently draining the system's resources, causing it to freeze, obliging us to re-boot it completely. This happened with Gparted currently on the Debian Etch repository, which we're using in this release. Besides, QtParted didn't instaled any extra library to the system, since the one needed was already previously installed by another application. As soon as we notice any other well behaving Gparted we'll go for a new try.

And for those who really love text consoles (like myself), here's an option to setup new partitions.

Of course, the option Exit will quit DLI, as well as clicking on the Cancel button or on the right-topmost rounded button
(for closing the main window).

Remember, if you need to make any customizations, like changing your keyboard, your national language, etc., refer to the Dreamlinux Control Panel (DCP), the second button, from right to left, on the Engage Dock.

DLI Main Window

Now, let's start to visit the DLI Main Window.

We begin by filling up the Box, Root & Users required informations.

Filling up those gaps is easy and intuitive. This part of the main window is expecting you to provide information about:

1 - The name you will baptize your computer during this installation. Verify that the application provides DL as a default, but you should provide a more significant name yourself. In the example, I changed it to Dream. So, when I log into my distro, after it's been installed, and open a Terminal, it will show "nelson@Dream$" as my prompt. Enter the name you wish and hit the Tab key.

2 - Then you are placed to the next entry box for inputing the root user password. This is the administrative account you'll use if it's necessary to configure the system out of your domain as a regular user. Input the password, hit Tab and repeat it on the next entry box. Be advised that if your inputs don't match the app will launch the following Dialog and you'll be taken back to the first entry box.

Warning Dialog. Your password didn't match.

3 - Next step is to insert information about one or more regular users to the system. If your intention is just entering yourself as
the only user to the system you don't even have to click on the Include button to insert your name in the Users queue, although
this won't hurt anybody and the system is clever enough to include your information, standing them into the entry boxes or already saved to the Users queue. A similar warning dialog will show if your user(s) password doesn't match.

For including new users you need to click on the New button. This action will clean up the user entry boxes and focus in the first one, User name.

Now we proceed with the second part of the main window, the Partitions Selection information.

In this part of the window you'll find two panels: the one on the left shows all the *nix type partitions available in your system, assuming you already have a partitioned hard disk. The information showed is the device (e.g., /dev/hda8), the size of the partition, its formated type and the columns under Mntpt (standing for Mounting Point), Filesys (file system) and Format? will be blank or have "none" written.

Ok, at this point you need some planning: will you use the traditional swap partition plus system partition or you'll split some directories (like /home/, /usr, /var, /opt, etc.) into different partitions?

Of course it will depend on the availability of partitions and your intention.

You select the partitions you want by clicking on its line and then clicking and holding the mouse click over the field aligned
with the Mntpt column. A dropdown box will show you the options of mounting points you have. For instance, / which stands for
the root mounting point. Do the same procedure to select the filesystem you want to format the chosen partition, in which case you´ll have to mark the Format? checkbox accordingly. After this you have two options: click on the Select button to send the partition information to the right panel, which keep your selected partitions informations; or proceed with the next partitions to
select and, after finished selecting, revisit all the ones chosen by clicking on them and then clicking on the Select button.

The program will prevent you from trying to select a partition without choosing both a mounting point and a filesystem. The figure below shows the message that will be shown, if you try to do so.




Notice in the previous figure that I have chosen, beyond the swap partition, three others: the main one to accommodate the root of the distro, to be formatted in reiserfs; a separate /home partition, to be formatted in SGI's xfs filesystem; and also a separate partition to accommodate the /var partition, to be formatted in ext3. Possibly I will establish a kind of webserver with this layout.

Remember: if you decide to go back and re-do your partitioning layout, click on the Reread button, to start again.

DLI's Grub Options

Next step on the installation process is the Grub configuration.

In this part of the Main Window you have four options to establish a Grub bootloader related to the new installation you're about to begin.

The first option, "MBR", that is marked by default, writes a complete new Grub in your computer, with a nice Dreamlinux themed Grub splashscreen, following the trend to use gfxboot, developed by Novell to it's SUSE distro.

This option correctly detects all the installed systems in your Disk, including Windows. This option takes advantage of a new Grub menu generation script written by Dreamlinux Team (in Ruby, of course).

Next option, "Root partition", installs a complete Grub system on the root partition where the distro is being installed. Beyond install Grub on the said partition, DLI also takes care of linking the entry of this Grub to the current master Grub bootloader, wherever it is located. This option is good if you have, for instance, one option to verify your computer's RAM memory, or if you have an extra kernel in your system and don't want to pollute the running Grub with so many different options that is linked solely to your new fresh installation.

The third option, "Existing Grub", will install your box in the designated partition and will write an entry for it in the current Grub bootloader, wherever it is located. This option is targeted toward those users who already have a well suited Grub system and don't want to have it complete replaced.

Finally, the fourth option, "Don't install", does nothing related to Grub, leaving in your hands the responsibility for linking your new installed box to a bootloader. This option is the only one someone can use if she uses or intend to use a LILO bootloader.

You have also the option to setup a name by which your distro will be referred to on the Grub menu, whichever it is. If you don't fill up this entry box, then "Dreamlinux MMGL Edition" will be used as default.

Last steps

Now you have two choices, install the system, clicking on the Install button, or cancel the operation, clicking on the Cancel button.

Opting for installing the system, a new Dialog will appear, showing messages of the installation process.

After, you just need to reboot your system, to verify that everything is Ok, and start to have fun using Dreamlinux.

Happy Dreams!

The Dreamlinux Team.

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