Any opinions on Sabayon or SuSe linux?

I am usually using Ubuntu, but some problems with my hardware makes it not play so well on my new linux box, so I've looking for alternatives, I'm currently downloading them, just wondering if anyone has opinions or experiences with either? I know SuSe is a fairly large distro so I expect to hear a bit about it, but haven't heard much on Sabayon before.

 

Sabayon vs Suse. There is no comparison really. Go with Suse! Just an advice: if you intend to use a box with linux, the first thing you should do before buying the hardware is to check online for compatibility issues. It sounds a bit strange the fact that you have hardware problems with ubuntu ( when you say hardware I understand core components of your system and not peripherals or usb devices ).

 

Well it's more of a I have an older system and want to install Linux vs. buying a new box just for it you know?

And yes, for some strange reason no matter what I do on any ubuntu variant or based distro it just won't work, it'll lock up right before the login screen, I've tried reconfiguring xserver, sock vesa, turning off everything with kernel options, even had some extensive posts on the ubuntu forums and some others, just nothing ever worked right on the box with any ubuntu variants, not exactly sure why, sometimes I'll get it installed and restart and it'll be fine, then the next restart it'll just lock up, I've tested hardware, I've swapped components, drives, etc, just seems like it doesn't play well with the motherboard, and sadly its the only board I have that'll support the CPU I'm using for it, in a situation with motherboards that most likely would be more compatible with no CPU's vs mothoerboard with CPU with less compatibility.

 

And also I'm not really trying to get a comparison between the two, just what people think of them, if it came down to it I'd just install both and decide, but I want to know what people think of Sabayon

 

well, i'm not a expert... but i tried this 2 distros and will tell you my personal experience:
Sabayon have a great desktop look (i tried only the gnome version), liked this alot. Installation process is slow. Is 1.8GB of download if I remember right, but you will encounter a decent number of applications. The only thing i not liked (and one of the factor why I removed it) is the updates... slow and BIG!!! When i tried it, more than 1GB. I encountered a lot of crashes with sulfur too... and sometimes it stopped the downloads because of one of the servers not respond. I really wanna you have a better experience with it.


With Opensuse all worked ok... i only encountered problems with the x64 version... but is particular to my hardware i think... Tried KDE and gnome versions and liked the 2... nice set of applications and Yast is great. The updates/package manager is not good as apt-get/synaptic, but is good. Multimedia is a one single click (link at the Opensuse forum).

That's it. But your best bet is try the 2 and make your own conclusions.

Take care

 

Sabayon is Gentoo based with enough eye candy to make Apple users go blind, every eye candy comes configured out of then box, no need to add anything, it also has one of the most extensive list of games, its Gentoo base also helps in keeping its speed but it needs moderately decent hardware, something that rpm based SuSE doesn't need. The later is more of a geenral distro aimed at stability, ease of use and even though it doesn't hold a candle to Sabayon in looks department, SuSE is still one of the most attractive of KDE destktops.

 

I'll try both out, no harm. If anyone has other suggestions of relatively easy to use distros I'll gladly try them, I have PCLinux 2009, Mandriva 2010, Sabayon 5 and the newest openSUSE downloaded and burned, the box I'm running on is an AMD Athlon 64 2Ghz, 1GB RAM, 256MB ATI Radeon HD 2600, 2x40GB HDD's.

 

In this moment I'm downloading Pardus. Here you can take a look at MRK review:

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/pardus.html

 

The important thing is to pick a distro that works with your hardware and has big users base. If these two things don't go together a distribution is not suitable for a home user. So before going "exotic" ( like Pardus ) try Fedora.

 

I'll add fedora to my download list, I'm just trying to get into some alternative OS's, I've been working with computers for years and only just now into alternative operating systems.

 

I would advise you to check out sidux as well, one of the fastest debian based distros out there and very well done as well.

 

I'll check that out too - one thing I've noticed, the 64 bit editions of Ubuntu seem to run fine on the system for some odd reason? But is a gig of ram enough for a 64 bit os?

 

I started with Ubuntu but had problems with my graphics driver. I never really got them sorted and turned to Sabayon.

Sabayon recognised my hardware including graphics and I didn't need to mess about trying to get my screen resolution fixed, it just worked. My old Aiptek graphics tablet worked. For some reason it started working on Ubuntu and then stopped for no obvious reason. I installed the AMD 64 bit version. The installation was graphical, was very easy and the install time was OK, at least for version 4.1.

One of the things that bugged me with Ubuntu was a delay after clicking the start button for the first time after boot but this wasn't an issue with Sabayon (I know, I know, I need to get a life).

I found setting up wireless more difficult with Sabayon than with Ubuntu and certain programmes were missing from Sabayon e,g, alacarte menu manager. That's not a problem because the package manager Portage is great even though it's run from the terminal. I prefer Portage as the package manager instead of entropy or now Sulfur but there is a choice.

The repos aren't as extensive for Sabayon compared to Ubuntu but I've never found it to be a problem as my needs are relatively meagre. I had no problems with the Ubuntu package manager but there is something strangely satisfying about Portage that you can't appreciate until you try it.

I don't really understand comments about eye candy. If you run Gnome, it doesn't matter what distro you have, install the theme you like and it looks the same whether it's Ubuntu or Sabayon.

I have found Sabayon to be an excellent choice but I don't have any other experience than with Ubuntu. The Sabayon forums are helpful but not as extensive as Ubuntu. However, most of my problems have been solved at the Sabayon forum. Any that haven't, have been solved at the Gentoo forum and some at the Ubuntu forum.

Sabayon, like Ubuntu installed my Epson C60 inkjet printer no problem. For my Samsung CLP 315 I had to install and use CUPS with the foomatic drivers. A bit of browsing of forums was required.

If I think of anything else I'll add it later.

 

I haven't tried Sabayon but I have tried SuSe twice and for me it was not a good choice. I admit I'm kind of a noob and I like things to work out of the box and SuSe just had issues. The most stable distros I've used are Mepis, Fedora, PCLinuxOS, Mint and Ubuntu. If you like kde then Mepis or PCLinux is a good choice. I have 4 desktops and a couple of laptops and I run Mint and Ubuntu and totally love them. I like the package management of Ubuntu/Mint but Fedora is a good second. I also run Slackware on a 20 year old Toshiba 333 MHz laptop, slow but it works good.

Jim

 

Sabayon is too weird for me...
SuSe - maybe one day

 

Well, the system uses a little more memory than I'd like but I have Kubuntu x64 running now, I tried all the others, Sabayon was alright but kind of odd, SuSe's package manager was awful otherwise it'd of been great, I'm still going to try out some others but I think Kubuntu will stay my main distro.

 

I'm confused. What is weird and kind of odd about Sabayon?

I'm not trying to get into some fanboy rant about it. I am genuinely interested in your perceptions.

 

From my experience Suse is heavy and bloated, and I've never heard of Sabayon.

I personally use ARch linux. It doesn't fit your 'easy-to-setup' mantra, but once you learn it it's lighter, leaner and easier. One just has to be willing to learn it. There are a couple of install guides at http://wiki.archlinux.org to help get you started.

 

I just tried installing the latest Sabayon 5.2 x64, both Gnome and KDE, unfortunately something went wrong and I was greeted with the famous "missing operating system" line on reboot. I don't know whether Grub didn't get written to disk, or what, but I gave up for now. No go on either.

 

Sabayon Core had a bug whereby the installer wouldn't work at all... In the final release. OpenSuSE has its downsides but you never see stuff like that in it.

 

Really shameful, this is why you see distros like Ubuntu, Fedora and SuSE on top of distrowatch stats.