Sabayon Linux 5
Sound and Multimedia
When I tried to play my Superman test DVD, I got a message saying that the Totem Movie Player did not have the right plugins and I apparently had to download them. I tried to find the missing plugins in Sulfur to get my test DVD to play but was not able to do so.
I had no problem playing YouTube videos, however. The sound and video worked fine without me having to do anything.
When I tried to play my test DVD I got a plugin error message in Totem Movie Player.
Problems & Headaches
I first booted into Sabayon Linux 5 using VMWare. When I tried the install it hung on the disk partitioning and I was not able to get it to continue. So I switched over to Parallels and found that Sabayon Linux 5 booted faster and seemed to run much better in Parallels than in VMWare. The install completed successfully in Parallels but I was not able to boot into Sabayon Linux. The system hung after I restarted it.
So I did another install in VirtualBox. Thrice pays for all they say and the third time was indeed the charm as I was able to boot into Sabayon Linux without any problems. I had no problems running Sabayon Linux at all in VirtualBox.
Note that the install seems significantly slower than installing any of the versions of Ubuntu. I’d like to see it speeded up in future releases. If you decide to install Sabayon Linux make sure you have something else to do while the install proceeds.
I was also irritated that I couldn’t choose individual apps to install rather than entire categories of apps during the initial install. It seems to me that if the developers have gone so far as to let users choose categories of apps then it makes sense for them to take even further and allow each user to choose the applications to be installed within each category. I’d like to see this in a future release.
Pick the application categories you want installed on your Sabayon Linux system.
(10 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
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(4.75 out of 5)
Another outstanding release. I’ll prefer you give try to this distro then you know its worthiness.The distro has everything for daily use or if you are a gamer then this distro will be ideal for you. A nice review on Sabayon can be found on
http://distrolove.blogspot.com/2009/10/sabayon-linux-5-linux-2u.html
I am not really satisfied with your review of sabayon 5…Actually i would rather like to see the review of KDE version of Sabayon as it is using the latest version 4.3.1 which is yet to see in a major distro….So it will be better to review KDE version in this review than a all familiar Gnome 2.26…..
Another suggestion i’m having is you didn’t even mention the SOFTWARE INSTALLATION METHODS used in sabayon as it will be entirely different from ubuntu….i haven’t even tried a gentoo based distro yet…i’m very curious to know about the software installation methods used in sabayon(like ubuntu is having apt get,synaptic,.deb etc…)please update blog with one more page describing software installation method in sabayon….It will be useful for people like me…
Another complaint i’m having is your blog lacks real content in review of distros…the only detailed review i have seen in your blog is the review of Linux Mint 7….other reviews are rather a copy of details given in the release notes of the distros and some wiki articles,which is used to fill first 3 pages of your review…These details can easily available from the distros website or from wikipedia,eventhough it will be useful to see everything in one site…if you are giving the above thing in your blog please dedicate ONE OR TWO PAGES EXTRA for more details like SOFTWARE INSTALLATION METHODS …
please consider these things and please give update about software installation methods….
I tried to sort out various issues with the KDE4 install. Sound continued to be a problem for my ECS 945G board as it was with 4.2. There is a really, really loud >POP< when the system is starting. Some apps, like Kontact, crash frequently.
I have not booted in Sabayon 5 for some days, preferring the stability of my openSuse 11.1 day-to-day disk. Perhaps I should let it update and try to reconfigure the audio before giving up. It is indeed much faster than 4.2, and the artwork is great.
Well, thanks for the review, but it falls a little short in my book. First of all, installing in a VM is a little more advanced than beginner linux for starters, so bashing SL for being bad for n00bs but using it in a way that n00bs would not use it, is unfair. That aside, the KDE version has traditionally been better in many respects. You failed to mention anything about the full disk encryption which is a new option in the installer for this release (along with Ubuntu and Debian IIRC as the ONLY distros which provide this important option at install).
For the previous commenter, Sabayon Linux uses Entropy (an in-house binary package manager). It is very slick on the CLI, if that’s your thing, also we have a GUI front-end sulphur which the review mentioned. SL does also theoretically work with portage and Ciaran’s package manager (can’t recall the name off hand), but such usage portage/entropy combined is HIGHLY dangerous for people who don’t know what the hell they are doing with portage and entropy. Entropy is on par with apt-get in terms of functionality and speed (although we would point out that in many respects it is better :P).
[...] Review of the New #Sabayon #Linux 5 http://desktoplinuxreviews.com/2009/10/07/sabayon-linux-5/ [...]
Got a fresh install going and updating now. Although the POP is still there, I did get sound configured right this time.
Once great thing I like about Sabayon is the inclusion of neat softwares that may be hard to find elsewhere, like Google Chromium, Picasa, LaCie Lightscribe Labeler and such.
Wow, a lot of critics out there today! Perhaps a few of you should write your own review of Sabayan – which Jim welcomes, to get more points of view.
I did try out Sabayan Live, and I tried the KDE edition. Considering the supposed fast Gentoo roots, I was not terribly impressed with the performance I got, especially since I am comparing it to a lot of distributions that I run the same way. What I’ll conclude, rather than suggesting that the distribution is not any good is just comment that it is not my style or preference.
It was OK booting, but probably 60% of the other systems I’ve tested have started up faster. In the KDE 4.3.1 edition, I got a number of error messages, which I believe were coming from the desktop search application, but I generally do not use that anyway, so other than the annoyance, they did not disturb me further.
I am not a particularly heavy user of test systems either, unless I am specifically doing quality assurance testing, which is another matter. In this case, I just wanted to do a quick evaluation to see if this one would interest me or not.
What I will say is that it browses fine, it will install the KDE 4.3.1 version in a Virtualbox OSE environment without any problems, and once loaded, it provides acceptable performance.
Friends I know that have used Sabayon in the past seem to like the game collection; I am not a gamer so that doesn’t matter to me, but for those who are, that may be one reason you would want to try out this distribution. Another reason might be if you like the Gentoo source packaging method, but you want an easier, more stable starting point, then Sabayon might be just the thing for you.
For me, it’s OK, but I’m more tied to the Debian way of doing things. Since Jim reviewed the GNOME version and I checked out the KDE version, they both work. I’d tend to favor the KDE release. sidux released a KDE 4 release, and with rolling upgrades, you can run KDE 4.3.1 on it, but this is the first release (Mandriva and Kubuntu are on its heels) that has actually released ISO images with KDE 4.3.1, so that may be another compelling reason for some people to try out this release.
The Firefox Web Browser is the latest 3.5.3 release, and it works smoothly, even live and in a Virtualbox instance, so that is another positive.
Thanks for the review Jim!
This is a INSTALATION’s review, not a DISTRIBUTION’s review
I too have to agree that the review more or less sucked! You completely glossed over most of the aspects that make Sabayon interesting. I’m an Ubuntu user but I’ve tried each release of Sabayon and find it to be a rather nice distro. As has been pointed out, reviewing a distro in a virtualized environment isn’t something a n00b is likely to be doing. Besides that I’ve found that most times a virtualized install introduces issues that aren’t present in a hard drive install.
go green and save energy wrote:
Thanks for the feedback, I’ll try to include more details about software install methods in the apps section of the review. As far as including what’s new, etc. I think it’s necessary to put it in the review because some folks might not bother to go to the distro’s site to read it. All of that info should be included within the review.
chickpea wrote:
I’ll try to do more with KDE but I do lean a little toward Gnome. Can’t help it, it’s just more my thing than KDE. KDE is great too but we all have our own preferences. I’ll bear your comment in mind though for future reviews of Sabayon Linux.
CJ wrote:
What would you have liked to be included in the review? Please be specific and I’ll try to incorporate your ideas into future reviews.
g wrote:
What would you have preferred to see included? Constructive feedback with detailed ideas is always welcome.