Review: dyne:bolic 2.4.2
March 14th, 2007 by jamesI decided for this one to step away from the more mainstream and popular distributions once again and check out something I haven’t used before. Here’s my review for dyne:bolic 2.4.2.
What’s dynebolic?
This distribution is about more than creating another version of Linux. It has a strong political and philosophical impetus behind it. I will let their website explain it:
dyne:bolic is RASTA software released free under the GNU General Public License.
This software is about Digital Resistance ina babylon world which tries to control the way we communicate, we share our interests and knowledge.The roots of the Rastafari movement are in resistance to slavery: this software is one step in the struggle for Redemption and Freedom from proprietary and closed-source software.
The distribution also aims to be media centric, with many audio, video and graphics applications. Once again, from their site:
dyne:bolic is shaped on the needs of media activists, artists and creatives as a practical tool for multimedia production: you can manipulate and broadcast both sound and video with tools to record, edit, encode and stream, having automatically recognized most device and peripherals: audio, video, TV, network cards, firewire, usb and more; all using only free software!
Dyne:bolic is a live CD distro that you can install or save your own personalized configuration to a USB memory stick. The distribution is designed to make it easy to take your OS with you wherever you go.
So let’s give it a try.
The First Boot
Ok here I will say the first time I tried dyne:bolic was 2.4.1 that was released a few days before 2.4.2. I booted the CD in my desktop and X was completely broke. It wouldn’t start up and there was a bunch of “file/command not found” errors. I tried it on the MacBook Pro, and once again, it didn’t work. I figured it must have been a bad release. Sure enough a day or two later 2.4.2 came out. I burned a fresh CD and popped it in my desktop.
The CD booted and the kernel messages started scrolling. After a minute X began to boot and… once again another distribution figures out I have an Nvidia card and opts to use the “nv” Xorg driver. And once again, on my GeForce 7800GT, my system becomes completely inoperable due to the “nv” driver not supporting my card. I rebooted the system again and attempted to figure out a way to prevent the “nv” driver from loading automagically but I could not figure out a way. There’s an option to change the video modes in the boot loader but that didn’t make a difference.
The Second Try
Going back to VMware Fusion Beta on my MacBook Pro, the distribution booted flawlessly.
dynebolic’s boot loader and the desktop once booted
My first impression upon the distro being fully booted up and seeing the desktop was that it was cleanly themed and didn’t have any of the flash and sparkle of some of the more recent distributions I’ve tried. Considering the distribution is meant to be used on low-end PCs, this made sense. It also had another result: this distro was very fast. Everything was responsive and loading anything, even under the VM, was quick. Contrast this to Fedora 7 Test 2 live CD which was pretty slow not just under a VM but also running natively on a Pentium IV desktop. The desktop wallpaper is definitely artistic and well done, but not my style.
Dyne:bolic uses Xfce as its desktop environment. Like Elive, the lightweight desktop environment results in a much faster feeling system. Dyne:bolic includes a wealth of useful applications, primarily focused on multimedia. There are applications to view, create and stream video and audio. Xine, XawTV, FreeJ, Mp4Player, Kino, Avidemux, XMMS, Amarok, Audacity, GIMP are just some of the many audio, video, and graphics programs this distribution includes. If you need to do anything with multimedia, this distribution will get you working immediately.
Beyond multimedia applications, there are also many networking applications. Firefox, Links2, Thunderbird, VOIP clients, peer-to-peer file sharing programs, remote desktop (vnc) clients, FTP clients, and networking tools are also included. Nvu, a WYSIWYG HTML editor, is also included. For office work, there’s Abiword for word processing and Scribus for desktop publishing. You can also burn CDs and DVDs with K3b. This probably isn’t listing even half of the available applications.
Dynebolic includes a multitude of applications for many purposes.
Dyne:bolic’s configuration panel is not too shabby. You get all the configuration options you need. It doesn’t provide as much in the way of configuration as other distros do, but it takes care of your basic needs.
Dyne:bolic’s configuration panel
Nesting and Docking
Dyne:bolic allows you to take your OS with you with what it calls “nesting.” Here’s how dyne:bolic’s documentation describes nesting:
By default your /home, /etc and /var directories reside in RAM memory: every file and configuration you save will not be there again at the next boot. To save your home and settings permanently you need to create a NEST: it is just a file on the harddisk or on the usb storage device where they will be stored and loaded back at every boot. You just need to create your nest once, dyne:bolic looks for it at every startup and if its present starts using it automatically.
Docking on the other hand is similar to installation. You run all the applications off the hard disk instead of the CD. However you don’t have to go through an installation routine. Their website describes this feature:
To install just copy the dyne/ folder from inside the CD to an HardDisk partition, no need to format, resize or delete anything.
This distribution makes it as easy as possible to take your OS with you, and use it without disrupting your existing installed OS.
Final Thoughts
Dyne:bolic 2.4.2 is a worthy distribution for your consideration. Other than the problem supporting my Nvidia video card, it worked well. It provides a ton of applications, and all the ones I tried seemed to work fine. It is solidly put together. The configuration of the distribution is very simple as well. Overall I really liked dyne:bolic. The nesting feature is a cool idea and the simple installation makes it easy to run it on almost any computer.
The dyne:bolic website, though it contains a lot of RASTA propaganda, is pretty good. The dyne:bolic online documentation is pretty useful. There are detailed instructions on docking (installing) dyne:bolic to your hard disk, and also using nesting. A wiki is also available that contains even more information.
If you use a lot of multimedia applications, dyne:bolic could be perfect for you.
March 15th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Nice little review. Dyne:bolic has lots to offer those with Linux expertise.
The review states that the configuration panel “takes care of your basic needs”. This is true only for expert Linux users.
I am a desktop user primarily, and not a Linux expert. An example: With Dyne:bolic, I was unable to set up a local HP laserjet printer. (Probably my error setting the correct URI - something I’ve never had to do.) The error message is cryptic. There are no instructions that help, and nothing in the Wiki.
Since some even lightweight distos (e.g. Puppy) make printer config easy enough, it is discouraging to a user like me when a Linux distributor can’t seem to find a way to make printing easy.
When it comes to installing Linux, Google is not my friend. Resorting to Google is an indication that a distro is aimed at expert users. That said, googling site:http://lab.dyne.org/ for printer returns two links that don’t help.
Further indication that this distro is for experts is the 2003 mailing list post that states…
“Can anyone assist with setting up a OfficeJet printer on a parallel port?… I’ve tried using CUPS, but I just get lost in all of the references, (e.g. lpadmin unavailable in Dynebolic) and I’m not sure what values to put into the various Web form fields and the system doesn’t appear to automatically sense any printers attached… Any help appreciated.”
There were no responses and apparently no change in administrative tools or help files.
This is not a general criticism of Dyne:bolic or of the review, both of which have far more going for them than problems. Capable Linux users will love Dyne:bolic.
March 15th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Tom:
Thanks for your comments. I didn’t try setting up a printer on this distro. Certainly that is something many people will want to do. I believe you’re right that this distro will probably suit more experienced users better.
March 15th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
But I don’t think that Dyne:bolic is designed to be used as a full time system, or at least that is the feel I get from it. I have never worried about it, since I actually use Dyne:bolic as a specialist distro, like for video input, specifically. You dont need to mess with the firewire settings, if you have a functioning card, it just works with Kino. I use Main Actor on Suse for actual editing, since I usually need frame accuracy, but it’s easier to capture with Dyne. Some audio editing seems easier, and you have LOTS of choices there.
I would use a different distro for my full time OS, but keep Dyne for special circumstances. Granted, I’m not a graphic artist, so printing isn’t an issue, but I think you could do your work, reboot (a pain, I know) in your main distro, and print away. The data is all the same.
March 15th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
I not an artist nor a computer specialist.
I made all of my master degree essays in abiword and listened to music at the same time.I must say that never had a problem with my epson printer.
I had too much problems in windows at that time, tried Dyne:bolic and stayed with the distro.
Now I use PCLinuxOS (THE best distro for me) but I always have a Dyne:bolic disc at hand.
March 16th, 2007 at 3:30 am
I am pretty experienced with Dyne and had the “nv” problem which I fixed by booting to init 3, logged in as “root”, password “luther”, changed the /etc/X11/xorg.conf driver to “vesa”, used startx, and saved my configuration to a “nest”. On reboot no worries.
One thing that Dyne gives the experienced user is a way of creating application modules through its SDK. In this way a “Dock” can be modified to include the users own application preferences, including ones own software, all of which appears in the menu on reboot. The SDK can rebuild the CD iso and if its too big for a CD, it can be burned to a DVD.
There is a lot more about this unique feature on the web pages.
March 16th, 2007 at 3:41 am
Instead of using VMWare, one can use VirtualBox on many distros to run the Dyne live iso in a Virtual Machine.
VirtualBox does not need a special kernel, instead compiling and loading a kernel module. You must of course have the header files and compiling tools installed.
You may need to export the VirtualBox path to LD_LIBRARY_PATH, if it installs to somewhere like /opt as it did on Ubuntu.
Ethernet works out of the box and depending on your hardware, alsa sound.
March 16th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Try also setting modules_prompt=1 in dyne.cfg (see /lib/dyne/utils.sh for reason).
Or configure grub for framebuffer (vga=788).
Dyne rocks for soft midi!
March 17th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Thanks for the comments, everyone!
April 6th, 2007 at 11:46 am
I need advice, I am a long time Windoze user who has had enough!
Anyway, I am presently using 2 Linux distros and very little knowledge in either.
I am also a heavey multi-media user. I have business that converts 8mm fim, super8 film, VHS, VHS-C, etc. to DVD. We do dvd scrapbooks, family histories, etc.
I have win2k and freespire in dual-boot and have dynebolic “docked”
Win2K works well with my present system: capture, edit and burn using Movie Edit Pro 11, also using VirtualDUB and TMPGEnc PLUS! and DVDLAB as needed.
However, very “quirky” and prone to crashes.
Freespire allows me to use my Nvidia dual-head (dual-vga) display, surround sound and HP5L printer. I cannot get Kino and Cinelerra working nor can I get my Canon i900D printer functioning nor my Microtek X6EL scanner in Freespire.
However, ALL devices work and function PERFECTLY in Dynebolic!
But, I cannot get my dual VGA monitors to work in Dynebolic and I cannot get my Canon i900D printer to function in Dynebolic.
I find that the “Freespire community” is very helpful but assumes that I know far more than I do about Linux in general.
Bottom line; Is there a way to get my other devices, HP5L, i900D printers and dual head video card functioning in Dynebolic?
If I can do this then I will have the best of both worlds as far as I am concerned:
Basic business functions in windoze (yuck but what are you gonna do?).
And be able to do my multi-media on an entirely different and “safe” system.
Please advise.
Regards,
Jay F.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:41 am
Another thing about Dyne:bolic is that it includes LaTeX! Lyx is there as well, but you can use vi and pdflatex if that’s your thing. My only “complaint” is the weird scrolling desktop, which screws up video and pictures when you view them full-screen. That’s probably fixable with a bit of configuration. Basically Dyne:bolic is what I wish Ubuntu had done instead of Xubuntu. If only it had apt-get and Ubuntu’s repositories!
May 5th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
I will be leaving for a trip to Haiti, not taking any computers, but I’ll have 2 live-cd’s with me : Dyne:Bolic 2.4.2 and Puppy Linux 2.15CE.
I will stay at a place where there are at least 2 winxp laptops, and a sat internet conection, with wireless… The question is : -are Dyne & Puppy gonna be able to get the wireless drivers correctly in order for me to connect there ??? -Will I have to use winxp again, after all these years away from it ???
Time will tell, I’llpost some feedback…
May 17th, 2007 at 7:01 am
Just some feedback to say that neither Dyne nor Puppy worked with the wifi… I was lucky that I had a Mandriva One 2007.1, which worked right out of the box… The cards of the laptop were Intel Pro Wireless…
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Dyne has worked on 90% of the computers I have contact with when docked but I can’t seem to get it to work at all “live”. However since the docking is so easy and it can be done within windows It’s worth it. I use it to copy files off windows computers with only one cdrw drive because I can instal it in less than 2 min and have a free drive when it runs. On newer computers it’s so fast it’s a little twitchy.
February 3rd, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Let me relay my configuration experience to help others.
I got Dynebolic working with an HP LaserJet 3300 printer by using a USB connection (instead of the parallel port connection I couldn’t figure out first). I went into Configure - Printer - Add Printer. I ignored all the printers that are already defined and chose mine from the list then accepted Dynebolic’s choice of “HP LaserJet 4 series CUPS+Gimp-Print v4.2.7″. The test print worked and my printer showed up in the print menu of other applications.
However, for now, despite being docked and nested, I seem to need to redo that configuration after a PC reboot.
Dynebolic’s website and docs need a little more info about how to do hardware configurations and how to get the configuration settings to stick across reboots.
For example, I need to issue the following two commands to activate my network card:
modprobe 3c59x
pump -i eth0
And, I need to reissue those commands periodically.
Otherwise, Dynebolic works well on my old laptop for programming and music purposes. Very snappy performance compared to the SUSE 10.2 I was using.
March 27th, 2008 at 1:59 am
Nice review! I have been using Dyne:Bolic since version 1.4.1 and I must say that you can use the studio to do almost anything you desire, we have created our own podcast, run a radio station, and even edit movies and the best thing is it’s free.
I too have had some hardware compatibility issues on my laptop but other than that everything else seem to work fine.