Just a quick update. I had initially installed Sabayon on my desktop using the 3.3 mini LiveCD. While I was away in Oklahoma for training I downloaded the 3.4a DVD in both x86 and x86_64 as well as a few others that looked interesting such as Bluewhite64. So far the only one I have had time to play with is the 32 bit version of Sabayon.
First up I tried the upgrade (not 6th sense) and that took way too long. I did let it finish and do everything it wanted to, however it did not fix some of the problems I had induced into my system, such as not being able to start the 3D desktop environment any longer. I waited something like 6 hours to find that the update pretty much spent 6 hours giving me a new kernel and left me with a partially broken system. Not that I couldnt fix it if I had wanted to, I knew where the error was I just dont need the compiz fusion beryl stuff active except for showing people that Linux outshines any other OS for eye candy.
Next I went ahead and did a fresh install using the same DVD. Folks if you are smart enough to back up the stuff you want to keep onto a seperate partition, this is the way to go. In less than an hour I had a sparkly new install vs 6+ hours for a partially broken upgrade. This is by far the fastest and easiest way to use the DVD to update your system. Of course you can still use emerge to upgrade as you go along if you choose and now that I have learned more how Sabayon/Gentoo works, thats probably the path I will continue to use. Not that I have figured out all the gotcha's yet, but I'm learning *grin*.
Anyway, Sabayon 3.4 is a very polished and functional system. If you have moved beyond the newbie distro's (and honestly Sabayon is almost capable of being a newbie distro ... almost) and are looking for something to start ecking out the most horsepower out of your system, Sabayon is a great place to start. Especially since so many things are already included and configured for you, more than in the various *buntu's or PCLinuxOS. Not to knock PCLOS, I still use that on my laptop and keep a few CD's handy to pass out to folks who are just starting out, its just that Sabayon is so much more, if not exactly as newbie friendly as PCLOS.
Good job on the latest release, I look forward to a long and fruitful affair with this great project.
1 comment:
I am pretty much a newbie and tried Sabayon yesterday. My desktop doesn't want to boot from a DVD-RW, even though it created it, but it booted on my laptop. Sabayon is the first distro to recognize my BCM4318 correctly without having to do anything like blacklisting the BCM43XX driver. That said, there was all sorts of weird stuff going on. The title bars of windows weren't there at all. I didn't know what was going on till I looked at someone's review and saw that there should be translucent title bars visible.
The big problem was that when I tried to enter a WEP key, Sabayon would not let anything be put in the field. I checked other applications, and the keyboard worked fine. I put the laptop down for an hour, and when I came back, it finally put in some text that I typed, but then wouldn't let me delete or correct it, and I wasn't going to wait another hour. It might have finally worked if I installed, but I wasn't willing to risk it or replace Mint.
So I've been on Linux Mint for 9 months. I also have PSLOS installed, but I've gone weeks without being able to open password protected RAR archives on PCLOS, despite downloading programs that should open them. Sabayon seems to be moving in the right direction, but they should not be advertising, like on their website, for people to switch from Windows, because if people are still on Windows, Sabayon is still too big of a leap. It may just barely be a tolerable leap as an addition to Linux Mint. If Sabayon's direction continues, or maybe, if Frugalware got massively easier while keeping the power of Arch, then we might get a hotrod system for the newbie and expert in one. That really is the ideal, and supposedly, if the system designed for ease of developers catches up to the ease of use for the user relative to systems designed for the user, then the advanced systems should only maintain and extend that lead. Ideally, Sabayon needs a binary or part binary dist-upgrade option that doesn't take forever like source to become king of the jungle.
In the meantime, I might eventually install Sabayon on my Desktop as a third system, but I can only recommend Mint, not even PCLOS for average Windows users.
Post a Comment