TechieMoe.com

Introduction:

Sabayon comes in 3 flavors: X86, X86_64, and Mini. The first two are DVD images, the last is one CD. I chose the last option since I have limited bandwidth. From what I gather of their website, Sabayon is based on Gentoo but offers a compiling-free install. This piqued my interest.

Install:

The disc gives you a choice at boot to go to the LiveCD or your choice of text/GUI installs. I chose the GUI install. This apparently loads a modified LiveCD environment.

There's a lot of down time between loading the LiveCD, choosing whether or not you want XGL+compiz and actually getting to the desktop.

This wouldn't necessarily be so bad if the maintainers would throw in a progress screen or something instead of just letting the user wonder whether or not the OS has frozen up.

The LiveCD loaded Nvidia drivers for my card automatically, which is certainly a nice touch. I was then brought to what looked like a Fluxbox environment and presented with the Sabayon version of Redhat's Anaconda installer.

The installer included some interesting animated cursor effects. I can't say that it was absolutely necessary to the install, but it was a unique sort of diversion.

My options for a GUI to install included KDE and "Fluxbox Geeky Desktop". I found that option amusing, but decided to load KDE instead. I was then asked for a root password and regular username/password and given the option to create more users.

Interestingly, the progress bars during the install are accurate to 2 digits past the decimal (56.87% complete). I'm not really sure why that was done, but it was pretty...geeky.

The installer kind of scared me because it seemed to take an awfully long time installing the bootloader, but once it was done it asked me to reboot.

First boot showed me a black GRUB bootscreen and I was brought to the logon splash. The boot process wasn't terribly speedy, even when running off a harddrive rather than the LiveCD.

My soundcard worked, as I found out when I logged in. I was greeted by a pleasant, if somewhat too epic, boot sound. Timpani is an odd choice for introducing a Linux distribution.

After login, I was brought to a README page that launched in Konqueror, describing how to use Portage and add kernel sources, since the Mini version (unlike the DVD) doesn't install them by default.

I can't say I'm thrilled about the default desktop theme. It was very heavy on the red, and red is not something I like to see too much of.

The kernel source install script "/scripts/emerge-kernel.sh" errored out, telling me it couldn't find /usr/src/linux. I assume this wouldn't be an issue on a machine with an internet connection, since I'm pretty sure an "emerge --sync" would bring my portage tree up to date.

Nvidia drivers were installed and worked correctly, as on the LiveCD. I was disappointed to see that no games (3D-accelerated or otherwise) were included in the default install for me to test them however.

MP3 and MPG/WMV8 playback were included, however I wasn't able to launch my movie files with a double-click. I got an error and was forced to load them manually through their player of choice, Codeine.

My scanner was detected and worked with Kooka, however with no GIMP in the default install it really didn't matter one way or the other. I couldn't work with images I scanned in.

Software Selection:

Firefox is present, but no OpenOffice, Gaim or GIMP. The alternative programs included are simply not acceptable for me.

No version of Java was included, which makes this distro dead in the water for my work. No games were included at all as far as I could tell, which makes this not the ideal distribution for just killing time either.

There was a decided lack of what I consider useful software, and a glut of what I consider "fluff".

For example: there was no GIMP but there was Krita, a program with which I have no experience and I would bet most people have never heard of.

Instead of OpenOffice there was KOffice, a project that I'm amazed still exists in light of its superior open-source competition.

Who's it best for?

The full Gentoo experience is included in Sabayon, so this might be a nice option for those who like Gentoo but want a quicker way to get a working installation.

If you have no internet connection, I'd recommend not even trying to use Gentoo or any derivative, because it is a heavily broadband-centric distro.

The DVD versions of Sabayon include a full portage tree and lots more software, so you may be able to get a reasonably useful distribution out of one of those without an internet connection.

As for me? Well, I'm once again left relegating this distribution to join its brethren in the great vertical storage cylinder under my desk.