Sabayon Linux 3.5 LiveCD Now Available

[Old_Biker_John]

Hi all,

I'm just trying Sabayon 3.5 LiveCD. Good selection of applications (including Firefox 3) and easy to work with those I have tested so far.

A positive first experience of a Gentoo-based distro.

If my initially pleasing experience continues I will install it and see how it behaves when it can run from a hard disk rather than a DVD.

You can download it from http or ftp mirrors or torrent here

This is the first Sabayon distribution that I have been able to boot up on my PC. All previous ones failed to find my SATA DVD/RW to boot the kernel, despite having already booted to the initial menu where you choose to install or run from LiveCD.

Has anyone else tried this package yet?

If so, what is your opinion?

John.

[scotty38]

I tried the previous version and, for me at least, it had the longest post install update.... hours and hours.... Once I'd got it all done it was all a bit too red for me

I can't quite put my finger on why, but I got rid of it pretty soon though and went back to my beloved Fedora and CentOS

Like most distributions you can pretty much make them all look, feel and operate very similarly so I don't know why I like Fedora so much, I just do.....

[1saintly]

Hi Old Biker John you quote ''A positive first experience of a ....''Gentoo-based distro.''!?

as a relative newby to linux just wondering what if any major difference there is from the usual linux ubuntu\mint i have been using?

Just had quick browse of Sabayon site, seem we have a choice of KDE or GNOME, i prefer gnome, so will give it a run. Mainly because of the the bit i read about drivers.........
Quote..

Outstanding easy-to-setup 3D Desktop, Gaming support, thanks to Compiz Fusion 0.7.6 and a set of free Top-Tier Games included or available (Sauerbraten, Second Life!, Nexuiz, Quake4, Warsow, Savage, Wesnoth)
- AMD/ATI Catalyst 8.6
- NVIDIA: 173.14.05, 96.43.05 and 71.86.04 - automatic selection
- X.Org Server 1.4.2 (7.3), automatic input devices configuration through HAL

As been having a bit of a nightmare with video drivers recently, after changing graphics card. new version of ubuntu\mint wont run correctly! running ubuntu 7.10 at moment, so far ok!

[1saintly]

Been doing a bit of googling and found this http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/about.xml

seems harder work to keep updated and running an uses less automated commands, according to what i have read on internet!

haven't downloaded it yet, as haven't got time at moment to play with new distribution, no spare dvds either and doesn't seem to be released for cds yet?

also still reading up about running it with 'gnome desktop'

but as soon as read a bit more will find time to experiment as i am intrested in this Quote.....

Outstanding easy-to-setup 3D Desktop, Gaming support, thanks to Compiz Fusion 0.7.6 and a set of free Top-Tier Games included or available (Sauerbraten, Second Life!, Nexuiz, Quake4, Warsow, Savage, Wesnoth)
- AMD/ATI Catalyst 8.6
- NVIDIA: 173.14.05, 96.43.05 and 71.86.04 - automatic selection
- X.Org Server 1.4.2 (7.3), automatic input devices configuration through HAL

found on this page http://www.sabayonlinux.org/forum/vi...=13917&p=79891

[TimD]

I'm a Gentoo user myself. Never been tempted by Sabayon tho', despite Daniel Robbins' recommendation.

Sabayon's "Chief Architect" always comes across as extremely petulant, and just a little dumb whenever he's posted on Gentoo lists and forums...

[Old_Biker_John]

Originally Posted by 1saintly

.... as a relative newby to linux just wondering what if any major difference there is from the usual linux ubuntu\mint i have been using?

Hi 1saintly,

I am a newcomer to linux as well, but I have recently spent a lot of time (too much really) testing several distros.

My understanding is that one of the main differences with Gentoo is the way that software is installed, updated and removed. Gentoo uses a system called Portage which behaves differently to the 'repositories' that Debian-based distros, like Ubuntu, use.

Sabayon have an explanation of Portage here

Originally Posted by 1saintly

As been having a bit of a nightmare with video drivers recently, after changing graphics card. new version of ubuntu\mint wont run correctly! running ubuntu 7.10 at moment, so far ok!

I have tried Ubuntu 8.04, but have some problems because it will not recognise my Windows PCs' shared folders on my network.

Sorry to hear that you have had problems with linux drivers for your new graphics card. If you post the problem in a new linux thread you should get some possible solutions in response.

Sabayon had no problem identifying my graphics card and installing the NVIDIA drivers, but I did start the boot up with a VESA option included in the command line.

Keep trying.

John.

[Old_Biker_John]

Originally Posted by TimD

I'm a Gentoo user myself. Never been tempted by Sabayon tho', despite Daniel Robbins' recommendation.

Sabayon's "Chief Architect" always comes across as extremely petulant, and just a little dumb whenever he's posted on Gentoo lists and forums...

Hi TimD,

Nice to hear comments from a Gentoo user.

I have so far been unable to boot-up Gentoo 2007.0 LiveCD to try it as the system fails to configure x and leaves me with a 'root' command line.

I don't know how to fix the conf file from there and can't progress.

I see there is a beta version of Gentoo 2008.0 LiveDVD. Perhaps that would detect my graphics hardware better. I'll download and try it now that Sabayon works.

I see that I'm only about 15 miles south of your location 'as the crow flies'! (Frome)

Thanks for the info.

John.

[TimD]

Hi John,

Yeah, the 2008 beta might be better. I think the Gentoo release manager has been having some personal problems recently, so there hasn't been a proper release for a long long time now.

The way gentoo works, new release media isn't very important once you have your system up and running. But that doesn't really help new users, does it?

It's definitely not as new user friendly as other distros, but once you have the hang of it, it gives you much more control of your system. Which may or may not be important to you

Tim

[Old_Biker_John]

Originally Posted by TimD

Hi John,

Yeah, the 2008 beta might be better. I think the Gentoo release manager has been having some personal problems recently, so there hasn't been a proper release for a long long time now. . . . .

Tim

Hi Tim,

I'm afraid Gentoo 2008.0 is even less user-friendly than 2007.0.

The screen with the boot-up choices takes you to a sub-screen to edit the boot-up command line and then fails to tell you that you need to press 'e' for 'edit' again to change anything.

After adding 'irqpoll' to the boot-up command line, Gentoo finds my hardware and correctly identifies my graphics card model, but still fails to configure x correctly and dumps me to the 'root' command line where I do not know how to access the conf file before attempting a restart of x.

Shame. I still can't try Gentoo unless I use a slow old Athlon computer that I have or switch to Sabayon which seems to boot-up without these issues.

John.

[1saintly]

[quote=Old_Biker_John;7307118]Hi 1saintly,
''i am a newcomer to linux as well, but I have recently spent a lot of time (too much really) testing several distros.''


Yep sounds about right, you have fallen into the same trap i did. Ended up downloading more than a healthy amount of linux os. Thought oooh just give this one a try, then someone recommended another so tried that, then a new release of another one etc etc.

Wife got fed up of computer changing everytime she swithed it on! so just sticking with ubuntu for now, although if sabayon has.... no stop it now dont do it

[RRB]

Originally Posted by 1saintly

Been doing a bit of googling and found this http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/about.xml

seems harder work to keep updated and running an uses less automated commands, according to what i have read on internet!

haven't downloaded it yet, as haven't got time at moment to play with new distribution, no spare dvds either and doesn't seem to be released for cds yet?

also still reading up about running it with 'gnome desktop'

but as soon as read a bit more will find time to experiment as i am intrested in this Quote.....

Outstanding easy-to-setup 3D Desktop, Gaming support, thanks to Compiz Fusion 0.7.6 and a set of free Top-Tier Games included or available (Sauerbraten, Second Life!, Nexuiz, Quake4, Warsow, Savage, Wesnoth)
- AMD/ATI Catalyst 8.6
- NVIDIA: 173.14.05, 96.43.05 and 71.86.04 - automatic selection
- X.Org Server 1.4.2 (7.3), automatic input devices configuration through HAL

found on this page http://www.sabayonlinux.org/forum/vi...=13917&p=79891

I am a Gentoo user and i cannot really fault it at all, its the best distro out there in my opinion. It is a steep learning curve and i wouldnt advise it for a linux newbie unless you have plenty of time and also want to learn linux quite indepth.

Regarding your comments about difficult updating and running, i can assure you, Gentoo is one of the easiest systems to maintain once it is up and running.

[RRB]

Originally Posted by Old_Biker_John

Hi all,

I'm just trying Sabayon 3.5 LiveCD. Good selection of applications (including Firefox 3) and easy to work with those I have tested so far.

A positive first experience of a Gentoo-based distro.

If my initially pleasing experience continues I will install it and see how it behaves when it can run from a hard disk rather than a DVD.

You can download it from http or ftp mirrors or torrent here

This is the first Sabayon distribution that I have been able to boot up on my PC. All previous ones failed to find my SATA DVD/RW to boot the kernel, despite having already booted to the initial menu where you choose to install or run from LiveCD.

Has anyone else tried this package yet?

If so, what is your opinion?

John.

I have tried Sabayon 3.4f and found it to be good, still there are quirks with it that i didnt like, i prefer the proper Gentoo distro. Sabayon runs the very latest and unstable software versions and that can cause problems. One good thing for a novice user is Sabayon is way easier to install than Gentoo. Gentoo's GUI installer is crap and doesnt work very well, where as Sabayon's one is pretty good. Gentoo do advise not to use the graphical installer but to install from the minimal text based cd which can be quite daunting but they do have excellent documentation to follow.