Sabayon linux FTW!

[abf]

For those of you who don't know, Sabayon (formerly RR4Linux and RR64Linux) is a LiveDVD based on Gentoo which strives to deliver a useful package of programs and an easy way to install Gentoo w/o messing with the handbook method. Recently, they have released the "mini" version, or in other words, a LiveCD. I have been following this distro for a long time, but could never get my hands on it because I don't have a DVD burner, so when the CD version became available, I jumped for joy.

http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=03549#0

ADVERTISEMENT: This thread is brought to you from the Sabayon Mini livecd environment running KDE 3.5.3 through Firefox 1.5.0.3.

So I am running current in livecd mode and it looks nice. For starters, nvidia and ati drivers (latest versions) are included on the cd and configured automagically! My wifi (atheros...madwifi) got recognized and configured from the get-go as well. The KDE 3.5 theme is clean and very nice as shows by this screenshot I just took for you guy's pleasure:
http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/2285/snapshot10ex.th.png (http://img376.imageshack.us/my.php?image=snapshot10ex.png)

The selection of default applications is rather limited, but lets remember, this si a "mini" after all. It still includes the basics that you'll need to get going like firefox, koffice, amarok, k3b, etc.... if you need anything else help yourself via portage :)

Let us not forget this is gentoo. That statement can be interpreted in 2 ways. 1) This project brings gentoo and portage goodness to the common man (my view)
2) its not a true gentoo since its really not 100% optimized so its slower than gentoo should be (a "real" gentoo user's view)

speed is not much of an issue on this distro. Granted it is not fully optimized blah blah blah, in fact here si the /etc/make.conf for those who want the details:
CFLAGS="-O2 -mcpu=i686"
CHOST="i386-pc-linux-gnu"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"

but its still actually rather quick, and thats running in LIVECD MODE! (granted i have 1gb ram, 24x cd drive, and 7200rpm hdd)

So far I must say I am very genuinely impressed with RR4Linux (err...Sabayon), so much so that I am about to dump my Ubuntu and hop on the Sabayon band wagon. :bow:

a more full-blown review will come post-install. :banana:

[drlouis]

nice! I just might have to give that a spin.

btw abf, you really need a new hobby. Distro hopping is just so geeky. :p

[abf]

THE INSTALLER:

They use the generic testing gui gentoo installer, and hey, unlike in gentoo, it doesn't fail on you 1/2 way through. It took oh about 21 minutes according to teh logs to install (didn't sit there timing it, went out to get some food). Its not quite as simple or as quick as the ubuntu installer, but still easier than any other gentoo install out there (except for arguably VLOS that uses Annaconda installer).

This distro is NOT for laptops....servers and desktop sure. Why? The boot time is really really long (over 2 minutes for me) and that is not hot. I was watching it boot in verbose mode and noticed some things i can take out, maybe gonna slice 30 sec or so off that.

also straight out from the installer on my first reboot i found ehh, so far 2 problems i know of. #1 is the resolution was not recognized correctly (solved by editing xorg.conf) and the other is that i can't get gdm to show up and get it to bring up kDE for me.....still playing with that, as soon as that is resolved more info/reviewage will come

[abf]

err....back to ubuntu i go. seriously! not that sabayon was bad, it just didn't work for me and i experienced constant freezes in the graphical environment. thats not good. haha....yey! now i get to restore everything i wroked so hard for to achieve on my ubuntu! thankfully, god invented automatix :thumbup:

[seablade]

Gotta agree with an earlier comment ABF, get a new hobby;)

Not that I am complaining, I have heard of more oddball distros through you than ever, but still... Even I am not that bad, though my wife might argue;)

Seablade