Sabayon Linux 7: A Review (With Screenshots)
9:11 AM
The starting desktop is beautiful, there's no doubt about that. And it includes handy links to help, donations, and installation.
System tools include a configuration editor, system settings, Deja Dup, an updater, power statistics, and more. I like that they included the configuration editor but wonder why they didn't include Gnome Tweak Tool.
Something I really love about this distribution is they include the Google Chromium browser by default. Empathy instant messenger and the Evolution email client are also included, along with the Transmission Bittorrent client and (another pleasant surprise) X-Chat IRC.
Another pleasant surprise is that Gimp is included by default. The Gnome image viewer, Shotwell, and Adobe's PDF viewer is also included by default.
Yay! LibreOffice is installed by default. A dictionary is installed by default as well.
As you can see, Flash Player is also installed by default. There's also a firewall and services configuration menu. The services configuration menu is something I sorely miss in Fedora.
The updater works well, giving you a preview of the processes as they run.
The Sabayon menu is full of helpful, informational tools to help you get started with your Sabayon Linux system.
Sabayon Linux also comes with the Brasero CD/DVD burning application, the Cheese webcam application, Exhaile media player, XMBC Media Center, and more. I'm not too crazy about Exhaile or the Movie Player, but that could be easily replaced. XMBC seems like it would be pretty interesting if I was running a media center, but I really see no use for it on a desktop system.
Sabayon Linux would have replaced Fedora on my system if it was not for this one teensy problem. Since Sabayon uses Sulfur for package management and the live system won't allow me a glimpse at what it has to offer, there is no graphical package management system that will let me see what packages it has to offer. I had to search on the Gentoo Packages website for packages to install. I would be fine with this if it weren't for my search for Gnome Tweak Tool becoming a muddled mess with the list of packages on the site. I wish the search would instead take me to a separate page showing me the search results; that seems like an easy enough solution to this problem. Until this is fixed though I am sticking with Fedora, as I don't like the idea of installing a system without first knowing it has the packages I need.
Conclusion
Sabayon Linux is a fast distribution with a very appealing set of default installed applications. I wish the live system would have allowed me to play with Sulfur, the graphical package system . Another pet peeve is that Gimp by default would only save to xcf and not jpg, gif, png, or anything else. It instead exports to those formats, which is strange. I give this a 3 out of 5.
xjonquilx | Mepis, Ubuntu, Fedora, Linux, Oh My!
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I have been using Sabayon for about a month now, and unless I am wrong, it has a graphical package manager called sulfur. I was a long time Ubuntu user, but hate Unity. I was trying something different out, and fell in love with Sabayon 7
ReplyDeleteI didn't see any packages called Sulfur and the Wiki made no mention of it but I will check again and correct this if I'm wrong. Thanks for commenting!
ReplyDelete"Entropy is the name of the Sabayon Linux binary package management system. This is the name for the complete infrastructure, composed by Equo client (textual), Sulfur client (graphical), Reagent and Activator server applications. "
ReplyDeletehttp://wiki.sabayon.org/index.php?title=En:Entropy
Hope this helps.
Open a terminal. su to root. Enter sulfur.
ReplyDeleteIn the desktop click entropy for sulphur. Sulphur is a very comprehensive GUI for package management. Though I liked the distro very much, being a debian user for a long time, I found the package management to be slow - otherwise I would have replaced my debian based OS in my desktop with this one.
ReplyDeleteSabayon do not use portage as main package manager but entropy.
ReplyDeleteSulfur is graphical package management :
http://wiki.sabayon.org/index.php?title=En:Introduction#Package_Management
gimp save always at xcf but you can export to different format.
It may be seen as entropy store or something like that.
You can use equo command to update your OS.
I do use Sabayon for a while and almost never use portage unless some specific packages I cant find in entropy.
Thanks, it does. I just need to get it working again. For some reason now it shuts down as soon as the starting music plays.
ReplyDelete[...] Sabayon Linux 7: A Review (With Screenshots) Sabayon is an incredibly fast Linux distribution, probably due to its Gentoo roots. Even though I ran this in Live mode it was snappy and highly responsive. [...]
ReplyDeleteI'm back on the system now but there is no client called Sulfur. There's just the Entropy Store, which updates the repositories and stops there, greying out any options to do anything else. I thought it was just part of the updating service to be honest. It seems like in a live environment you're not allowed to do certain things.... the client freezes and I'm not allowed to get a glimpse at what packages are offered.
ReplyDeleteYou should check out Sabayon's package list instead of Gentoo's. While all Gentoo software is available in Sabayon, not all of it is available as binary packages.
ReplyDeletehttp://packages.sabayon.org/
Thanks. From this I found that Gnome Tweak Tool doesn't exist on Sabayon. Does it?
ReplyDeleteI've been using Sabayon for months now and really like it for these reasons:
ReplyDelete- it is a rolling release distro, so I don't have to wait 6 months to get new features.
- it is fairly stable. Updates don't come every day like Debian testing.
- it has a good sized repository
With any Linux distro you can install anything, so I don't
worry about what is installed by default.
By the way, I have the gnome tweak tool installed. I installed it with the Entropy store GUI. I caution against
publishing a review based on what you can and cannot do on a live CD
What is the file name of it in Sabayon? I couldn't find it.
ReplyDeletegnome-tweak-tool
ReplyDeleteunfortunately you have to type it in with the hyphens, admittedly it could be more flexible
With a rolling release you sometimes get a few hiccups, and I've had several with Sabayon. But it goes with the rolling release territory and I don't mind.
If I had a spare computer I would like to try aptosid.com, it is based on Debian experimental, so be ready for a rough ride. You have to be a tinkerer / hacker at heart to try something like that.
Nah, not much of a tinkerer now days as I have work to get done. Thanks for the tip about the hyphens, that's why I wasn't able to find it.
ReplyDelete[...] Sabayon Linux 7: A Review (With Screenshots) (xjonquilx.co.cc) [...]
ReplyDelete[...] Sabayon Linux 7: A Review (With Screenshots) (xjonquilx.co.cc) [...]
ReplyDelete[...] Sabayon Linux 7: A Review (With Screenshots) (xjonquilx.co.cc) [...]
ReplyDelete[...] Sabayon Linux 7: A Review (With Screenshots) (xjonquilx.co.cc) [...]
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