I'm currently using Ubuntu but may want to move to another distro. Iv'e explored these two as the most conveinient for desktop user. But what are the differences?...Like I didn't like the control panel in Mepis...and didn't like the blue cursor in Sabayon, but both came flash ready... Will they come DVD and audio/mp3 ready?...And are what are the differences in gentoo base and debian base? Just to name a few examples of their respective attributes.

Mepis is now based on Ubuntu, but I find subtle differences---eg it does not disable the root user by default. Mepis and Kubuntu (both KDE) are now my two favorites.

More generally, the Debian family (IMHO) has the best package management and the most complete repositories.

Note that KDE is highly configurable, so maybe you can fix things you don't like.

With sabayon and it's use of unstable gentoo packages chances are that the whole thing crashes and burns with the first update you do.

Linux Mint is also an Ubuntu clone that has all multimedia codecs available upon install. I've never used it, so I don't know how it handles root access.

http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=03919#0

Edit: Sorry, Just noticed you wanted KDE, looks like LinuxMint is Gnome only. I imagine though, you could install the KDE GUI from the repositories, but thats just a guess.

IGF

I've had good luck with Mepis, but I haven't tried Sabayon. I do like the package maintenance in Mepis for its stability, and I've never had any problems with upgrades, which is a breath of fresh air in the Linux desktop world...the downside is the time it takes to get new releases/fixes for some software. An example of that currently is Amarok and libxine, where I am disappointed to find Mepis a fair bit behind the game. Still, it's a better Kubuntu than Kubuntu, as the saying goes, and I would definitely recommend giving it a try.

Where is OP???

Another option to consider is PCLinuxOS--it is based on mandriva, but uses the apt/synaptic package management.

I missed the Saboyon/Gentoo connection---I personally see no reason for the self-inflicted torture that is Gentoo.

Yeah, I'm just about to side with you. After exploring a number of distros somehow I've gravitated to these two as well. The only downside to mepis, that I can see on the outside, is the detached control center...but I wonder If it can't be replaced. As for Kubuntu, It would be my first choice except for lack of codecs in video and flash. My first pick was Sabayon except I don't know about adequet support for it like the Ubuntu/Kubuntu...and as you mentioned maybe some other downsides to Sabayon. Iv'e had real good stable performance from Ubuntu since October which leads me toward Kubuntu but don't know if I want to (or how to) set up the codecs.

What do you mean by 'disable the root user'? That I have to restart grub and login as root to access certain privilages instead of staying logged in as user? The latter is how Freespire appears to it.

In Ubuntu, you cannot log in as root in either the GUI or in a terminal. Nor can you issue "su" to become root.
It is fixed by simply going to a terminal and typing "sudo passwd root". First, you are prompted for your user password, then you enter the new root password.

But after all that, when you open certain system utilities it still wants your user password.

Mepis thankfully has none of this nonsense....

I am a former Sabayon User. The releases after 3.1 were not stable enough for my liking. 3.1 nailed all of my hardware. 3.2 and later missed a lot and didn't get the res right.(common problem but a let down after 3.1) Sabayon is great if you like the bleeding edge and don't mind a few wild crashes here and there. I really liked emerge until the update world. Support for Sabayon is great on their forum and IRC. The Live help button that came with 3.2 is a nice feature.
If your looking for a Gentoo based distro without the headache of actually installing Gentoo get SL. I haven't used Mepis yet.

I have used the new Sabayon Linux and personally I found it to be bloated! It requires a MINIMUM of 8GB hard drive space to install. The ISO file is only 1 DVD so it must be totally compressed, and the torrent took about 3-days for me to download it. Also I found Sabayon's custom KDE set up to be a little confusing. I didn't give it much of a go after that and deleted it from my VMWare.

I also tried Mepis and it was okay. I would say try Mepis over Sabayon Linux.

I happen to be in the process of adopting a new distro. I've been a huge fan of SuSE, but v10.1 and also v10.2 have been majorly problematic or simply unusable, and v9.3 getting old. So I'm looking

A number of the LQ members whose opinions I respect seem to list MEPIS as their distro, but after fooling around with it for a couple days, I'm not convinced it's the answer. The partitioning choices was weak IMHO (I was installing over an existing distro, and could only specify /, swap, and /home. That's nice, but my minimal requirements also include a separate /boot, /usr, and /var partitions). I'll mess around some more with MEPIS but so far I'm lukewarm.

I've also looked a Sabayon, whose Live CD is flat out amazing. The built in Beryl functionality is a serious bragging point, and especially cool if you haven't regularly used Beryl before. The installed version though is not at all the same, and at least in my book is several steps down from the Live CD. I'll fool around with it for a while though, so at least in my book no final decisions have been made.

As usual, just my 2 cents

I was very impressed with the live DVD, and was surprized how fast it was. I wonder what several steps down means? Overall performance and efficiency, or just buggy, or not the same format packages?

I wondered why it took so long for the live DVD to load. It probably is bloated as you said. But once loaded it performed great.

I too found sabyon unstable. Mepis has some really powerful repair tools built in. I love Mepis but I'm giving Mint a try.