Re: [proaudio] First look at Sabayon Linux

[Dominique Michel <dominique.michel@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Le Wed, 14 Feb 2007 13:06:56 +0100,
Frieder Bürzele <evermind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> a écrit :

> 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
> 

I think at it must be "eselect opengl" that take a lot of time. As I have
kernel with the nv driver and other ones with the nvidia driver, I done a boot
script to select the opengl architecture and the right xorg.conf.

It work very fast when no change is needed, but it take a very long time to
switch the opengl arch when needed.

Maybe at it can be a faster way to do that because eselect seem to only change
some symlinks.

> >> - 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
> 
tkinfo will be needed if no man pages... but it will be better to have the man
pages.

> 
> Greetz
> 
> Frieder
> 

Ciao,
Dominique