I have been using Ubuntu and would like to dip into a gentoo based os. Now I don't have any ink to print out the gentoo handbook so I an looking into Sabayon. My question is how is it? Would you recommend it and how good is portage? Thanks in advance.

The best way to install Gentoo is to use have the manual up on one computer and then install Gentoo on the other. Though I realize not all of use are lucky enough to have that many computers.

As to your main question, Sabayon, but all that I have read, is awsome. I use Gentoo a lot, and if I ever deceieded to go Gentoo without going offical, I'd use Sabayon.

Portage is nice. If your computer is fairly new compiling shouldn't take you near as long as people always complain about it taking. In my experience the only packages that really take a long time to emerge (i.e. X, GDM, KDE, etc.) are the ones that Sabayon is going to already have setup for you, so compile time probably won't be much of an issue for you.

Here's a review, the guy has nothing bad to say really.
http://techgage.com/article/sabayon_linux_rc2

I believe there is now a "Official" gentoo live cd, that has a gui installer..Which probably does a stage3 install..

The GUI installer does doe a stage 3 install. Which is of no surprise since a stage 3 is the only supported type of install. Anyone is welcome to do a stage 1 or 2 and the proper tools are provided, but don't expect any offical help. As far as I know, the GUI installer is still in beta and very buggy. I wouldn't recomend using it quite yet. At least wait until 2006.1 comes out.

One can also mention using qemu and kqemu
to have a virtual installation runing within linux. So you can
still read the manual on a single pc
(Am saying that because sabayon supports it, and I suppose the
live cd of gentoo would as well).
I do not have vmware, but same would apply I imagine

I can "confirm" this. I have been looking for a while into an
easy gentoo way to discover gentoo.
Taking the plunge in the next few days with Sabayon
(after quite a bit of reading, I decided this was my best option)

Having forgot in my earlier post, I'll bring it back up now. If you've only got one computer with internet access, that of course being the one your installing Gentoo on, you can still follow the book without printing it off.

Press Alt-F2 or F3, etc. to open another terminal, then you can use links from there to follow the handbook online while doing your install. I've used all the way up to F5 so you've got atleast five different terminals you can work from. I actually used this method this week while installing Gentoo on my laptop at school, worked out well. Good luck!an "confirm" this. I have been looking for a while into an
easy gentoo way to discover gentoo.