Re: [proaudio] First look at Sabayon Linux

[Frieder Bürzele <evermind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

kRAkEn/gORe wrote:
> i've tried it, and there is nothing like kororaa 0.2 live cd... speed,
> boot time, hardware detection,
> command line install/configure tools very simple and easy, also it
> have a clean interface.
> i feel sabayon like a dinosaurs, nothing like a clean gentoo :)

yes it is a bit big, but we could easily customize it.




> On 2/2/07, SteelRage <keywiz@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Hi there to everyone.
> > In the last days I'm testing Sabayon Linux quite deeply to see how would
> > it be as a base for an eventual pro-audio-overlay-enhanced installable
> > live DVD.
> >
> > I still didn't try to install pro-audio overlay, rt-sources and so on,
> > because I wanted to test it "from scratch".
> >
> > Well, first of all the good aspects I found:
> > - Great default theme (very cool)
> > - Great default software selection
> > - Support for all the major Destop Environments
> > - Good "basic" Hardware detection (with exceptions, see below): this is
> > the first distribution I try that configures correctly my Echo-Digital
> > Mia, (which requires an external firmware, found in alsa-firmware),
> > without kernel rebuilds or manual configuration file editing, and
> > installs echomixer (even if I had to start it from command line ;)).
> > - Good performance for general desktop usage.
> > - Good Idea to keep an icon on the desktop ti get help via IRC (already
> > used in other distros).
> > - Great upgrade-recovery tool (you can update/recover your Sabayon Linux
> > when there's a new version directly from the LiveCD/DVD)
> >
> > Now the problems I ran into and the aspects that IMHO need improvement
> > (for each one I filled a bug report on bugs.sabayon.org):
> > - VERY LONG boot time.

yes it is too long. Especially the configuration for opengl takes also 
too long

> > - Beryl was quite buggy with my video card. I had to switch back to kwm
> > more than once to complete even basic tasks because of white windows and
> > other similar problems, even after updating it to the latest version.
I think it should be off as most off the time it won't work especially 
with ati-cards.

> > - Printer detection/CUPS configuration didn't work automatically
> > - After first boot, soundcard recognition started working randomly
> > (sometimes it's detected, sometimes no =_=)

all modules got loaded -- so it seems alsaconf was never launched!?!?
We need also a easy tool to select the primary soundcard like studio to 
go or
it seems that bardix already implemented such a alsaconf hack.

> > - Too much wasted space on the desktop for resolutions <= 1024x768.
> > IMHO there's no reason to have a so big kicker+taskbar that never hides
> > on the bottom and another transparent bar with clock and other applets
> > on the top. I would use a single panel on the top, with an auto-hidable
> > kicker such as kooldock, ksmoothdock, etc
> > - A lot of little bugs that need to be fixed around applications
> > (firefox and thunderbird that don't respond well to mouse wheel, etc).
> > They're quite easy to fix for a Gentoo user, but not for a newbie (or
> > somebody who wants it working directly out of the box).
> > - Some minor usability issues (example: if I go to kcontrol -the first
> > configuration tool a newbie would see- to adjust window decorations,
> > nothing will happen. No window decoration change and no error message.
> > It is because the window decorator is Emerald, not kwm or Aquamarine, so
> > he should use beryl-manager to change it)
> >
> > I had the impression their development team (I interacted with a pair of
> > them) was quite cold about my observations "from the noob perspective".
> > I felt the same from their community, when going into the IRC channel
> > and the forum ("It is the user that has to learn."; "Every distribution
> > has its own learning curve"; "You can tweak it by your own until it
> > suits your needs")
> > I suppose there could be 2 explanations:
> > 1) The target of Sabayon Linux is the user who already knows Linux (a
> > "quite-power-user") and how to tweak general GUI aspects by his own
> > 2) They don't know what is the target of their distribution
> >
> > Conclusion:
> > I think this distribution could be usable (if there will not be too big
> > problems/conflicts with kernel and services) for HD-recording pourposes,
> > but it will need some major tweak in default desktop configuration and
> > usability in general.
> > It's cool, but could be improved :)
> >
> > Anybody else have tried it? Impressions?
> > Greetz
> >
> >
> > Paolo
One last missing feature is: no 'man pages' are installed -- thats very 
sad as I really like them :) just 'info pages' for some packages available


Greetz

Frieder