NEWBEE? Try SABAYON Linux! WHY?...READ!

caleb · 27-02-2007, 04:32 AM

This is FOR beginners BY a beginner...i.e. yours truely.

If you are a newbee i.e. beginner with absolutely no knowledge of the Linux world other than the knowledge that it exists and you wanted to try it sometime...than you HAVE to try SABAYON...why? Here we go:

I am a newbee to linux. I've heard of Linux in the year 2002 for the first time....thru Digit. I had even collected several Linux Distors since than but trying just one live CD between 2002 to November 2006.

When I heard that Win VISTA with the coveted "AERO" will be out sometime end January 2007 I called up Microsoft in Delhi (Gurgaon) to find out the price for it I was a bit discouraged as it was a bit too much at that point of time *and even now) to invest that kinda money when I don't really need a new operating system..I've been using genuine Win XP Media Center...you see I am hard core Windows Fan and I still am.

Anyway so I decided to Google a bit to see if there is anything equivalent to AERO in the Linux World, and that's when I heard of BERYL...I can imagine some Linux gurus in this forum smiling to themselves remembering all the silly questions I had asked about BERYL & LINUX in the past couple of months...ok back to the story...so I googled and googled and googled to "discover" that there are some freaking 350 odd Linux distributions...so my journey into the Linux world was confusing to say the least...at least for a person like me who's been a Windows fan all his computing life.

So I tried several distors starting with Mandriva 2007, Fedora Core6, Open Suse 10.2, Knopix 5.11, Centos 4.4, Ubuntu 6.06 & Ubuntu 6.10...(don't laugh that is just 2% of all the linux distributions out there)...anyway I had tried them out first on Live CD and then installed them onto my HDD. I had kept aside no less than a total of 100GB for these installations. There was a time when I even lost 50GB (actually I didn't loose it but didn't know how the hell to get it back after loading Mandriva & Fedora one after the other).

Of the distors I had tried, I liked Open Suse10.2, Ubuntu 6.10 & Mandriva 2007 the most...but every installation I had done had some problem or another, because of the million and one command shells that one needs to type and othr million and one repositories that one needs to download to extract complete multimedia experiance, but mostly bcoz I wanted BERYL working. I was successful in getting BERYL installed in Open Suse 10.2 first..so I was totally flipped out with the capabilities of BERYL but my joy was short lived as the system was unstable with BERYL eg. the system would either hang or crash if I played even a ancient arcade game or tried to burn a CD or DVD, but later on the problems were much more frequent making my computing life miserable...so I tired installing BERYL on UBUNTU 6.10 once again similar problems...in total I had re-installed Open Suse 10.2 about times & Ubuntu 10.2 about four times...ok all that was to convince you that I am dumb in the Linux World...so if I say SABYON is the best for dumb guys you have to trust me coz I'm an expert in that field with extensive experiance.

So to make this long story short...while googling around a couple of weeks ago I came across SABAYON Linux which as per several linux forums, is the most stable linux for BERYL. So I downloaded the DVD ISO and tried it out a couple of days ago. BTW I had installed it twice coz I forgot to put in my boradband IP address etc during installation and couldn't figure out how to after SABAYON got installed, he he he...once again that is to prove my credentials of expert dumbness in linux world.

(Amended on 27 FEB 2007: I forgot to mention that you need 10050mb space for this operating system..that's approx 10GB)

What is amazing about SABAYON is that EVERYTHING is "out of the box" you don't need to update/download any repositories...what a major relief for absolute beginners like me...just stick the DVD in the tray, follow some simple instructions...simpler than Windows...(check: http://techgage.com/print/sabayon_linux_32 to believe it yourself, it has screen shots for you to easily understand the installation process)...and you've got a FANTASTIC Operating System that will blow your mind...it has EVERYTHING out of the box...you can transcode/encode DVD movies, rip them, watch them and what not, the system automatically recognises ALL the graphic cards (except the NVidia8800) and installs the required drivers and the same goes for any hardware that you stick in just after a brand new installation of SABAYON...all this WITHOUT downloading any repositories...for those of you beginners repositories are basically...hmmm, well, uh..."A GREAT BIG PAIN IN WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE"...they cause you untold misery, heartache and lost man hours if you are a beginner like me.

What's so AMAZING about SABAYON is that BERYL also works automatically you just need to by just clicking on one button...that's it...it's that simple. You can play games or watch DVD movies or play mp3's or encode DVD movies or update your antivirus all this while your system is in BERYL mode adn WITHOUT crashing a single time...it is ABSOLUTELY COOL.

I know most Linux gurus don't "approve" of the eye candy and stuff, as it is "wasting of time" coz you end up spending a lot of time on it...yes it is...but hey what the hell, I did NOT buy my PC for some office work (my office provides me one anyway) mine is a HOME PC i.e. I bought it essentially for FUN & GAMES and I LIKE to show off the capabilities of my PC and the power of it's OS to my "techno challenged" friends and family...I spent my hard earned money on it for PLEASURE, it helps me unwind...helps me be a tough a*s commando or a spy on a special mission or just a bum working his way up the ladder (SanAndreas) to kick a*s the bad guys in the gaming world...so I like ALL the eye candy I can get. If all of that is coming to me absolutely FREE thru SABAYON...WHY NOT? I am now convinced that SABAYON can do more than VISTA/AERO in terms of eye candy & multimedia (barring gaming ofcourse).

This baby also has LIVE HELP icon on the desktop...just click it (make sure ur internet connection is on) and an IRC client will automatically take you to the Sabayon chatroom...absolutely BRILLIANT for newbees.

This is way too se><y and smooth without the pain of typing million and one crazy n confusing shell commands...anyway the moral of the story is: if you are as dumb as I am to the linux world but would like to give it a try make sure you download and install SABAYON...for those in Mumbai if you want a copy of SABAYON I'll be glad to share it. Trust me you try SABAYON & you will forget VISTA for all practical purposes other than for gaming ofcourse.

Here is a little bit about what the SABAYON website has to say about it:

What is not Sabayon Linux

* It is not a binary-only distribution. Yes, you can install Sabayon Linux in half an hour and have a powerful Desktop under your hands. But our current policy does not mind the idea to fork Gentoo Linux packages management only because users don't like to waste their time with compilations. We have a clear idea, if you don't want to compile a lot of packages just wait for the next release, because, you always be able to:
o Update your current installation to the latest Sabayon Linux by running the Installer and choosing the Upgrade option
o Keeping up to date. Sabayon Linux release cycles are very very short. And if you just want to keep your PC secure, just use the glsa-check utility.

* It is not developed with politics in mind. This means that if we like an application over another, it's just because it could work better and be closer to our out-of-the-box philosophy described above.

* It is not Company driven. We have always been first of all, users, and then developers. That's our power and our view. We only want something that gets the job done, without Microsoft and their superficial Operating System implementation.

* It is not Ubuntu! We don't try to mimic any other distribution. We just take the best from each one.

Why Sabayon Linux is different from other distributions?

* Sabayon offers a complete out-of-the-box experience. This means it comes with preinstalled Multimedia, Internet and Gaming Abilities.
* Release are done in a short time. This means that you dont have depend on updating "by hand" to the latest and greates Software Available. Also you dont have to fiddle around with updates, and your system keeps consistent.
* Unlike most other Distributions its completely independent from commercial interests. No big firm stands behind Sabayon, and dicates how the Distribution should look like. The Developers of Sabayon Linux are all Users from other Distributions, so they started to make basically a distribution "from users for Users".

Wanna read more? than log on to: http://www.sabayonlinux.org/wiki/ind...y_this_name.3F

mehulved · 27-02-2007, 05:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by caleb

What is amazing about SABAYON is that EVERYTHING is "out of the box" you don't need to update/download any repositories..

<distro trolling>
Portage rocks. All you'll users of lesser distros bow to the power of portage
</distro trolling>

Have you tried installing additional softwares? Updating the system? I did give sabayon a try but got stuck while updating the system. I didn't understand portage so well at that point of time. Now, with gentoo I've started loving portage. There might be something about updates I may have missed.

Now coming to the point that first came to my mind when reading this thread.
Firstly, beryl/compiz isn't included in any other distro by default as it still hasn't achieved the maturity to be stable enough for everyday use. It's still work in progress and the biggest hitch comes in the fact that many of the effects require proprietory drivers, to work. And companies like canonical, RH and Novell can't give such proprietory drivers out of the box as sabayon can. The same goes for multimedia codecs. Though, this has been made a lot easier now. Enabling full multimedia support is gonna be a lot easier in Feisty as per what I've heard and seen now.
Sabayon is a great distro but it still requires a few more things to come up.

freebird · 27-02-2007, 06:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tech_your_future

Now coming to the point that first came to my mind when reading this thread.
Firstly, beryl/compiz isn't included in any other distro by default as it still hasn't achieved the maturity to be stable enough for everyday use.

Foresight Linux packs Compiz by default.It is a GNOME distro with latest GNOME and a new packaging system called Conary.It is based on rPath Linux
http://foresightlinux.org
http://www.rpath.com/rbuilder/
still there are ppl who are happy with compiz effects,not Beryl

Tech.Masti · 27-02-2007, 06:38 AM

I am new to linux... Anyone please explain , what is BERYL?? Heard first time

mehulved · 27-02-2007, 06:45 AM

Beryl is something needed to provide 3D desktop, in linux.
Here's beryl's home page http://www.beryl-project.org/
Here's an entry in wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryl_(window_manager)
You might like to read on compiz first before beryl since beryl comes from compiz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiz

caleb · 27-02-2007, 06:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tech_your_future

<distro trolling>
Portage rocks. All you'll users of lesser distros bow to the power of portage
</distro trolling>

Have you tried installing additional softwares? Updating the system? I did give sabayon a try but got stuck while updating the system. I didn't understand portage so well at that point of time. Now, with gentoo I've started loving portage. There might be something about updates I may have missed.

I felt that there was no need to install any additional software or update the sytem coz everything in recognised every single hardware that I had on my PC inclusing the latest NVidia graphics card. It took 28.05 minutes for the total installation (all I had to do was click, click and few more clicks grab my adrak ka chai and caught up on the daily news on TV and before the news was over the system was up running...all I had to do was select the option was running beryl...once again just a click. Oh yeah almost forgot...it comes with Quake4 & Coldwar demo games both of which work amazingly well WHILE beryl is running.

I know that Sabayon may not carry much value to accomplished linux users as much as it would to a total newbee like me. I think it's a step in the right direction for the linux world as a whole as it'd spread the "install/user friendly" features of linux and newbees can always "grow" into the complexities of the system once they are "mature".

Apart from the "ease of use/install" factor here are a few lines from the Sabayon philosophy which appeal to me a great deal:

"Sabayon Linux release cycles are very very short. ...our current policy does not mind the idea to fork Gentoo Linux packages management only because users don't like to waste their time with compilations. We have a clear idea, if you don't want to compile a lot of packages just wait for the next release, because, you always be able to:

* It is not developed with politics in mind. This means that if we like an application over another, it's just because it could work better and be closer to our out-of-the-box philosophy described above.

* It is not Company driven. We have always been first of all, users, and then developers. That's our power and our view. We only want something that gets the job done, without Microsoft and their superficial Operating System implementation.

* It is not Ubuntu! We don't try to mimic any other distribution. We just take the best from each one."

..:: Free Radical ::.. · 27-02-2007, 06:53 AM

which distro is the best with beryl? All things considered.
can some1 plz post their experiences.
Already repped u caleb

.
Is compiz good enough. How does it compare?

**kalpik** · 27-02-2007, 07:39 AM

So as i understnd, there is no way to update or add new software to sabayon? All i can understand is that to update the system, download the FULL DVD of the next release and then update the system through it.. Am i right?

mehulved · 27-02-2007, 08:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kalpik

So as i understnd, there is no way to update or add new software to sabayon? All i can understand is that to update the system, download the FULL DVD of the next release and then update the system through it.. Am i right?

Nah use portage. The amazing emerge command. And if noobs like you [

] are afraid they can use Kuroo, KDE frontend to portage. And yeah one thing to know about is meta packages. I didn't know so much about meta packages and that caused major headache for me, while trying to upgrade. But, now I have learnt a bit about portage and gentoo I feel like an idiot about that.
Sabayon is nothing but gentoo, which has some already compiled packages. That's why the following statement

Quote:

our current policy does not mind the idea to fork Gentoo Linux packages management

So, you can very well use the gentoo's packages. Afterall gentoo doesn't have gentoo packages per se but just the source files or bin files not customised for gentoo, unlike other distros.
__________

Quote:

Originally Posted by ..:: Free Radical ::..

which distro is the best with beryl? All things considered.

At this point not many distros come with beryl out of the box, so you don't have too much to choose from. 2 distros worth mention here with pre installed beryl are sabayon, already explained here and PCLinux OS.
Go with Sabayon if you feel you don't mind waiting to update the system when their next release comes. You can very well install additinal softwares using Kuroo, which is GUI

, but updating can be bit of a problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ..:: Free Radical ::..

can some1 plz post their experiences.

My experience with sabayon wasn't so good cos of a bug with the version of KDE that came with Sabayon I had installed. I tried to update the system without understanding portage and it felt difficult. So, I just had to remove it. So, that was my fault there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ..:: Free Radical ::..

Is compiz good enough. How does it compare?

Beryl is a fork of compiz so they are more or less the same. Beryl has more features and is more cutting edge. If you want a 3D desktop without too many 'toy' effects then go for compiz, else go for beryl.

..:: Free Radical ::.. · 27-02-2007, 09:09 AM

@tech_your_future...ty,can't rep you again
ftp://dotdot.mine.nu/sabayon/iso/x86...x-x86-3.26.iso
Ain't this the latest build? Hope the bug in KDE you mention has been fixed.

**kalpik** · 27-02-2007, 09:16 AM

@mehul: Thanks for the explanation.. I might try sabayon the next time i feel the urge to switch distros

And yeah im really a noob in front of you

mehulved · 27-02-2007, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ..:: Free Radical ::..

@tech_your_future...ty,can't rep you again
ftp://dotdot.mine.nu/sabayon/iso/x86...x-x86-3.26.iso
Ain't this the latest build? Hope the bug in KDE you mention has been fixed.

Yeah it's fixed in KDE-3.5.5, it was there in 3.5.4. You won't face that bug unless you are a left hander. The bug was that when mouse was changed to left handed it couldn't click properly. Using mouse right handed wasn't at all comfortable for me so I removed it.
__________

Quote:

Originally Posted by kalpik

@mehul: And yeah im really a noob in front of you

Kyun khali fookat chane ke jhaad pe chada raha hain.

mediator · 27-02-2007, 05:01 PM

@caleb : I feel a person shud be totally satisfied with the things he uses. So all I can say is if ur satisfied then congratulations and just stick to it now. Experience urself what is lacks and what u find most exciting. If u find it lacking something then ofcors u can switch to some other distro. Neways i guess ur settled now.

caleb · 27-02-2007, 07:13 PM

^^When it comes to material things I don't think I can be "totally satisfied" ...it is as good as the next best thing within my budget...since Linux is always within budget

: ...I am satisfied to the extent that it serves my current needs, hey but needs always get "re-evaluated" when the next best thing arrives...I'll use it until the next best thing comes along.
__________
I forgot to mention that, SABAYON needs 10050mb of space to install on ur HDD...that's approx 10GB.

kumarmohit · 27-02-2007, 07:33 PM

10 Gigs will be needed if every thing is installed, removing unwanted things will reduce the size.

subratabera · 27-02-2007, 09:58 PM

Nice read...Thanks @caleb for that.

BTW Sabayon is releasing its 3.3 edition very soon...

Tech.Masti · 28-02-2007, 01:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tech_your_future

Beryl is something needed to provide 3D desktop, in linux.
Here's beryl's home page http://www.beryl-project.org/
Here's an entry in wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryl_(window_manager)
You might like to read on compiz first before beryl since beryl comes from compiz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiz

thanks Tech-your-future....

and tell me name of some distros which are come with compiz....

mehulved · 28-02-2007, 03:31 AM

Just came to know from neowin that even the latest version of Knoppix has beryl.
It seems sabayon also has compiz. You need to give the right boot time parameter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiz#Deployments
You can search for distros carrying compiz here http://forum.go-compiz.org/

nach p · 28-02-2007, 05:20 AM

Can I use Beryl in Ubuntu ?
Or Do i need 2 use Sabayon or Suse for tht

caleb · 28-02-2007, 05:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nach p

Can I use Beryl in Ubuntu ?
Or Do i need 2 use Sabayon or Suse for tht

Yes you can use Beryl with Ubuntu...need to download the repositories and configure it...I tried it with Ubuntu 6.10 and it worked but was not stable...crashed everytime I tried to paly a simple arcade game or even if I tried to rip a dvd.

nach p · 28-02-2007, 05:32 AM

If its not stable den its useless 2 use it on Ubuntu at a moment

caleb · 28-02-2007, 05:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tech_your_future

Just came to know from neowin that even the latest version of Knoppix has beryl.

Which one...I tried Knoppix 5.11 and it didn't have beryl.
__________

Quote:

Originally Posted by tech_your_future

It seems sabayon also has compiz. You need to give the right boot time parameter.

Yes, it also has compiz, all it takes is just one click.

praka123 · 28-02-2007, 05:51 AM

yes.afaik it do have

mehulved · 28-02-2007, 06:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nach p

If its not stable den its useless 2 use it on Ubuntu at a moment

It is stable. I have used beryl on ubuntu for quite some time and never had problems. Only time I had problem was when using onboard graphics. Turns out my savage card wasn't supported.
__________

Quote:

Originally Posted by caleb

Which one...I tried Knoppix 5.11 and it didn't have beryl.

You have to pass it as a parameter at the boot time. Just when the live cd starts booting press F1, it will give you all the options you have. You may even have to press F2, F3, etc to get all the options. Just type them as you need.

caleb · 28-02-2007, 06:26 AM

^^Interesting..didn't know this...will have to try.

Sand · 28-02-2007, 12:43 PM

this sounds like a good distro to try

subratabera · 28-02-2007, 01:52 PM

Integration of 3D desktop beryl+emerald as add-on for KDE (manual start with gnome is also possible), via boot option knoppix desktop=beryl.

More...

caleb · 28-02-2007, 02:21 PM

^^Thanks for the link

caleb · 17-03-2007, 08:11 AM

Here is some upgrade info on the new Sabayon 3.3 release

March 16th, 2007 -

New features and improvements:
Sabayon Linux kernel sources based on 2.6.20 featuring wireless-dev, unionfs, squashfs 3.0, Afatech 9005 support, MacTel enhanced support
Both systems completely recompiled with new LDFLAGS that give an extra performance boost and reactivity
Featuring both software raid support and dmraid 1.0
GeeXbox has been updated to 1.1rc1 waiting for the upcoming 2.0 release.
Gentoo Portage import freeze was on the 20th of January, 2007
Complete artwork redesign to meet the new marketing strategy
Faster boot time thanks to massive startup optimizations
Created the basis to the yet highly experimental eINIT support trough the selection of the accelerated init system using (accel_init=/sbin/einit)
Featuring HAL 0.5.9 and D-Bus 1.0.2 for an out-of-the-box laptop experience
X.Org 7.2 featuring AIGLX and Composite support
Beryl 0.2.0r2 supporting XGL, AIGLX and NVIDIA Composite extension
NVIDIA Drivers 9755 and 9631 (legacy - automatically triggered - to disable append nvidia=disablelegacy to the boot prompt. To force 9631, append nvidia=forcefail instead) sporting our runtime linking feature
Support for the latest NVIDIA GPUs like GeForce 8800 GTX
ATI Drivers 8.34.8 sporting our runtime linking feature
ATI GPU detection improved for X600, X700, X8xx video cards
Metisse 0.4 Technology Preview ONLY for GNOME and KDE desktops
Outstanding wireless support thanks to the drivers imported from the wireless-dev linux kernel git tree (sporting the cutting edge DeviceScape IEEE802xx stack) and to a much more integrated NetworkManager stack
Outstanding NTFS support in read/write mode thanks to NTFS-3G 1.0
Fonts rendering highly improved on all the Desktop Environments (fonts look sharp and clean now)
The award winning Acceleration Manager has been rewritten using Qt 4.2 and it's 2x times faster than the old one (latest release is 1.3.2)
KDE 3.5.6 with Sabayon Linux integration patches
GNOME 2.16.2 with a highly improved Sabayon Linux integration
New Games on the DVD! (removed Quake4 and added Sauerbraten - aka Cube 2 - and Battle of Wesnoth)
Get Live Help extended to the shell using irssi (you can run "get-live-help" without X.Org, chat with us and get helped, LIVE!)
New Virtualization Support stack featuring: KVM-12 (fully supported), libvirt and Virt-Manager GUI (Technology Preview ONLY)
Music Edition is now enabled by default (you'll hear a nice music made by Tryad on Jamendo.org during the Live boot - CC License)
Sabayon Linux Installer is now about 25% faster on fresh installations and 10% faster on upgrades
6th Sense Install upgrades now could be considered much more ironed out and tested but still EXPERIMENTAL
New users creation after install will have the new Sabayon Linux default look
Automatic and out-of-the-box video card auto-reconfiguration after install: if you'll upgrade your PC to a new video card, the system will auto-reconfigure X.Org automatically
Finally we have a LVM Management GUI imported from RH - system-config-lvm
Language Configuration Helpers have been rewritten and ironed out
Mozilla applications language autoconfiguration now works nicely
Added Safe Internet Browsing Helpers to easily enable/disable Tor/Privoxy stack after install on GNOME, Ephipany, KDE, Konqueror, Mozilla applications and Opera. See /sbin/safe-browsing-setup
Netscape Flash now works out-of-the-box on Firefox, Konqueror and Opera browsers
Tons of stability fixes.