Sabayon - Quick Review

[clem]

I've only looked at the liveCD (mini) and the installer so far:

1. Graphical and text installers available directly from isolinux. This is a killer, definitely something we need to work on. Users with 256MB have enough RAM to run Mint but not always enough to install it.

2. The installer can install but also update a previous sabayon installation. We don't need this but it's quite a nice feature. Something to consider.

3. The user is asked whether he wants no effects, AIGLX or Xgl at boot time. This should be done in our upcoming first-run configuration wizard (see thread on Fedora review).

I'm still testing... so there's probably more to come.

Clem

[lavs23]

I've always been a big fan of Sabayon. I don't have enough patience to use emerge though, compiling software isn't very exciting to me. Sabayon is my favorite KDE distro right now. I like the way the live CD is setup the installer is good, and desktop effects on the liveCD is nice. Being able to upgrade to the latest version using the liveCD is a very nice feature.

[mayku]

3. The user is asked whether he wants no effects, AIGLX or Xgl at boot time. This should be done in our upcoming first-run configuration wizard (see thread on Fedora review).
Clem

That's what i loved from it, because i have always problem with my nVidia Graphic acceleration, i am sure this will be a nice feature for Linux Mint too.

[belovedmonster]

3. The user is asked whether he wants no effects, AIGLX or Xgl at boot time. This should be done in our upcoming first-run configuration wizard (see thread on Fedora review).

Though obviously doing such a feature needs to be noob proof with some sort of explanation of what this means.

I'm sure you are well aware of this, but I cant stress it enough. I'm sick of Linux distros that still assume some prior knowledge of linux or computing at a (relatively speaking) high level.

When I tried pclinuxos I was disappointed by the number of questions it asked me about the type of network I had before it would let me run the live disk, I dont think a none tech user would have a clue what to select. Stuff like that doesnt help anyone.

[tinny]

Running the Sabayon live CD or DVD is fun and instructive, but I would never take the trouble to install Sabayon because I know what's underneath. (Gentoo)

[kanishka]

Running the Sabayon live CD or DVD is fun and instructive, but I would never take the trouble to install Sabayon because I know what's underneath. (Gentoo)

I have the latest Sabayon in a testing partition, and I'm writing from it. I too was a little afraid to install it, but it was really worth. Plain and easy. Everything works, and fast. It's really impressive. If you have some Gb to spare (I'd say 15 Gbs at least), by all means try it.

That said, Mint is still the best distro ATM

[tinny]

Thanks for the tip, Kanishka. If installing Slackware 12.0 proves too daunting, I will give Sabayon a try, on your recommendation.

[kanishka]

Thanks for the tip, Kanishka. If installing Slackware 12.0 proves too daunting, I will give Sabayon a try, on your recommendation.

Nice!

[BlahBlah_X]

Hey clem. I love how you are reviewing all the competition of Mint.

I would suggest also reviewing the following distros:

1) MEPIS
2) openSUSE
3) Debian Lenny
4) Mandriva
5) KNOPPIX (which i think would actually make a good base for mint)

[marku]

i have been using linux for about 8 years, starting with red hat 9. never dug to deep, and decided sabayon 325 would be a good way to try gentoo from a distance. i really enjoyed the time and learned to use emerge fairly well and i must say sabayon is a class act. ...... then i tried to use my epson cx3800 printer, and the wheels fell off the wagon. i emerged foo-this and foo-that and reinstalled foos and ppds for two days. no luck. it was like fedora 2 all over again, except that f2 would work with the printers you had. strange thing is that it recognized my printer and i configed for the scanner which worked. would not print. reboot with mint disk and big smile is back. if anyone figures out how to add printers to sabayon please let me know. marku

[xav]

I've tried Sabayon 3.4 recently. I was very excited about it, it looked very nice and had loads (like Loooooads!) of programs.
But after installing it I realised it didn't read my screen resolution right, I had problems with my PPP connection and it used 10 GB of my disk space with it's hundreds of programs from which I used only a couple. I thought it was just a waste of disk space. And emerge... OMG, compiling a stupid package takes over an hour while with aptitude I've got it in two minutes.

[contents]

Sabayon is not only the first distro that has been able to get compiz/beryl/fusion working with my crappy Radeon Xpress 200m integrated graphics card, but it got it working automatically with the live CD, and all I had to do was to click "XGL" in the boot up process! Hats off to them.

[carltonh]

I was very impressed with much of Sabayon when I installed it on my desktop. Since I've never been able to figure out/configure Compiz Fusion myself, this was great to see it work. However, I got aggressive on Portato (portage/emerge) in trying to manually update stuff. I caused the system to crash and I ended up installing Sidux over that partition. Sidux I can actually manage to do a dist-upgrade safely, but only because of the smxi script.

For average users, Sabayon is workable ONLY if they update ONLY packages they recognize (say a Firefox update) but then use each new release's Update function on the installer.

Also, Sabayon 3.4e was the only distro that automatically worked with my BCM4318 wireless card, but I keep Mint on my laptop.

[clem]

Gutsy will come with better support for Broadcom chipsets, and this will come into Mint 4.0 (Daryna).

Clem

[allforcarrie]

how about some kind of GUI slider so you can adjust the lvl of desktop effects you want.

[alexander]

Sabayon looks pretty slick however I'm always weary of any distro that tries to install every piece of software known to man

Good job clem on checking out the competition