New Distribution Forum - Sabayon

Markjuggles: You can also go to YouTube and see a demo of it there. There is a guy who reviews a previous Distro and highlights some of the cooler pieces to it. Let's put it this way. After watching it, I was motivated to at least try it. Here's the video. Enjoy!

--alec.

Originally Posted by markjuggles Thank you Richard, That is a nice summary. I have stalled out on Gentoo a couple of times but like the philosophy. Some how I doubt that any single distro will have all the packages I like, but loading up at install time is a reasonable choice given the size of modern disk drives. Are there any stats on how much faster Sabayon might be over Ubuntu on average? When I tune and tweak the kernel, I get something like 2-3% improvement. Mark

Originally Posted by Shingoshi If LinuxQuestions.org was a representation of the global community, war would have broken out between every nation a long time ago. This is only a commentary on how little regard so many users of their own distributions have for those and the efforts of others. I really wish there could be a demonstration of mutual respect. But sadly, that is not likely to happen. I truly welcome the efforts of everyone who strives to advance Linux. Shingoshi

Here, here!

We are all here for a multitude of reasons. We are all here to help improve things for ourselves and others. We all have our own preferences on how we like to do things and how we like things done, which we should always remember may not be the way the next person in our community likes it... And, that is okay!! "Just like with any tool, you have to pick the right distro for the job."

I, personally, am a 13+ year overall linux user and 5+ year Gentoo user, and that's fine for me. I like messing with my system and it bugs me when something happens with my system that I don't know why or how it happened. But, that is NOT most users. My roommate will give up on installing a game if he gets one troublesome error on the install. He doesn't *want* to know what is going on behind the scenes. He, like most end-users, just wants it to work. And, that's fine too. Right now, he's trying his hand at Ubuntu 9.04.

When I started getting serious about making computers a career, another tech told me something that has always rung loudly in the back of my head; "Never judge another tech's work as you have no idea under what conditions they had to work." This needs to be kept in the forefront of all of our minds in this community. If a particular driver/app/distro doesn't work for you, that is an issue, but it doesn't make that code worthless. It's just not useful to you. You can tell the authors why it's not useful to you, and with some patience, you might get something that is useful. Or, you just might look elsewhere for the same kind of code that is useful to you. Either way, the only thing that being condescending, aggressive or insulting towards the authors serves is weakening the community at large. And, with enough external entities trying to denounce, defame and bury our community as it is, it would seem silly to waste time and energy on any kind of fighting within. You have enough valid external targets to choose from that would further strengthen our community.

I've been a geek for over 27 years, and I'm a linux PC! hehe

Welcome to the community, sabayonistas!

Power to the Penguin!

ShadowCat8,
I commend you profusely for your comment. And I especially like your signature. Somewhere between the two of us, resides commonality!

Challenge the limits of your existence!
Shingoshi

Originally Posted by Shingoshi If LinuxQuestions.org was a representation of the global community, war would have broken out between every nation a long time ago. This is only a commentary on how little regard so many users of their own distributions have for those and the efforts of others. I really wish there could be a demonstration of mutual respect. But sadly, that is not likely to happen.

Looking at the post you replied to, this would seem to be a massive overstating of the case. Yes, all distro users believe that their distro is the best, this just goes to show how subjective these beliefs are and how meaningless the question "which is the best distro?" really is.

The post asked perinent questions about the distro. They were asked in the wrong place, granted, but they are the questions everyone should ask before switching distros: what does this distro do that my current distro does not? How is this distro different from the others and why should I switch? Lest we forget, there are over 100 different distros out there and they differ to varying degrees, so we are now in a position where each distro is vying for attention and so they all need to sell themselves.

Originally Posted by Shingoshi I truly welcome the efforts of everyone who strives to advance Linux.

As do we all, hence, LQ.org.

Originally Posted by Shingoshi If LinuxQuestions.org was a representation of the global community, war would have broken out between every nation a long time ago. This is only a commentary on how little regard so many users of their own distributions have for those and the efforts of others. I really wish there could be a demonstration of mutual respect. But sadly, that is not likely to happen. I truly welcome the efforts of everyone who strives to advance Linux. Shingoshi

Hi Shingoshi,

I don't think war would break out, because the vast majority of us are resonable people seeking knowledge and opportunities and come to communities like here to share some views. On the other hand many reasonable people who use Linux distros do not contrubute to the community simply because they know how to use a Linux systems and don't have time to go to every forum and share their views, there are simply too many Linux sub-communities in the whole world and people are simply to busy doing their work not related to what is happening in the Linux community.

Personally, I would rather believe war would break out between the Windows and Linux communities.

One good thing is that Linuquestions.org is a good place to find help about a specific distro if the originating forum fails us to help. I see this as a very positive move. The more sub-forums we have, the better for the whole Linux community.

Best regards to all,
Richard

The highest goal to aspire to, would be no war at all. We simply too often think our ideologies must be everyone else's as well.

Shingoshi

Maybe my original question was a little terse, but it was certainly fair: "What is the motivation for any distribution?"

This is not a criticism, it gets straight to the point. The team who supports any distro does a lot of work and, I imagine, they would like to reach a certain community. Like "beauty", the "best distribution" is in the eye of the beholder. My current distribution, Ubuntu, is very good for a turn key installation and supporting newbies. What it gains on one front it may loose on another, so what is your distro's motivation or core values?

I'll have to give Sabayon another try now that there is some support here on Linuxquestions.org. I tried it a while back and couldn't figure out the "use" flags in portage.

@ Shingoshi - distro wars have little appeal for me - I have even found a use for Windows that contents me - in a suitably configured Linux virtual machine environment it is safe from the outside world and can run most of the not-yet-on-Linux things one might need, albeit rarely.

No problems with enthusiasts promoting their own preferences - it is good to learn how (eg) Sabayon has moved on, and that there is a new approach to updates - am even keener to try it out now that there is an alternative to Portage, which defeated me last time.

The huge variety of Linuxes ensures that there is a good statistical chance of problems being found and solved somewhere. If not in Sabayon, then in SuSE, or Ubuntu, or Knoppix, or Puppy, or .....

Then, a couple of releases downstream the solution is found (or available) in all (or most) of them!

More.... the enthusiastic and hard-working people who develop the software, (and test, and release it) acquire new skills and (by their example) encourage others to learn.

This is the miracle of FOSS. We live in wonderous times, and it makes me very happy.

Let's hear it for the devs and our own gentle Sabayon Linux Team on LinuxQs!

Originally Posted by markjuggles ... what is your distro's motivation or core values?

Well, I guess it depends on who you are asking, if developers, I am not among them, but I guess maybe some of them will come and add some comments.
As for me my main motivations are very wide, but in short:
a) I try to pick the most stable Linux, so I do some searches before I pick up any distro.
b) I check the packages it has, to see how much software I need to install and whether it is an easy process, or does it involve a lot of learning (RPM packages vs. Portage for example)
As someone mentioned, Portage does put some people off... But I think a good search and some basic hints could really help and things aren't that complicated as we might think. However, masked packages can become a real nightmare for someone who dosn't like to fiddle around or simply doesn't have the time.

In the end the distro that has almost all programs I use wins.

c) I check how many of the web plugins work especially with the multimedia, as well as any offline content, WMV, AVI, DIVX files, etc., any specific files I have, like .MOD files produced by my camcorder
d) I install a distro or use the Live DVD/CD to see how the graphical interface is configured.


Interestingly the last point (Hehe) may as well be the first, because when I saw Sabayon, I was really positively astonished the way the system looks after you first login. This of course doesn't mean I don't do any tweaking, like changing all my default fonts, which unfortunatley are all sometimes horrible in almost any Linux distro. But this also could be related to the graphics card one has and what hardware was used to develop the distro. We cannot expect people who configure these things to have all the possible hardware in their tiny home laboratories, can we?

Best regards,
Richard.