Why I want / won’t to jump to Sabayon

I have been using Xubuntu 10.10 recently, mostly because Arch Linux absolutely refuses to connect through wireless on install CD through cli. So I have been feeling the itch to switch it up, mostly because my wireless card is so unstable in Xubuntu right now (constant time outs is annoying). So I downloaded the live DVD of Sabayon XFCE, and gave it a spin. 

What I first noticed the DPI settings for fonts were way off, but as always those are easy to fix, so I just bumped them up to 92. My second instinct was to test my wireless card, so I connected straight to my network, and went on YouTube, and watched a few videos. It seemed to be more stable there, but still it is hard to judge just by a few moments of browsing.

Then I wanted to take the package manager for a spin, which is where Sabayon utterly confuses me. Not only does it use portage, as Gentoo, but it also have a binary in house developed package manager called Entropy. This is something I don’t understand, they include two widely different package managers in a single distribution, and recommend you just use one or the other…

Anyway, I loaded up Entropy GUI and tried to locate my most commonly used software. First load took forever, though I am sure this was due to it loading the entire database from the server, and being hampered by the live system. Then I searched for a few packages, and I am not sure what to make of it. First, they package naming scheme is probably way more different than from what I am used to, so I will not hold t hat against them, but I still got an impression that any search phrase including any commonly used word will result in a wide variety of hits. E.g. I searched for Gnome DO and probably got every package for GNOME listed, and I could not figure out how they were sorted. When I tried to sort by application, which I presumed was application name, it grouped them together with some strange headlines. I didn’t spend much time figuring out, and it is probably simple once you know what it tries to do, but it was not self explanatory.

Second negative thing for me, which is probably totally unfounded, but still at the back of my mind, is that the install media is 1.2 GB. This, to me, translates to a ton of preinstalled crap I do not want. While looking through the software selection I saw that several browsers are installed, which I don’t really approve of. I am more of the 1 app per task mindset, and large install medias really sets me sceptical at first boot.

In summary, I will not try Sabayon, mostly because of my previous experiences with it have left me scared of using Portage. Secondly, I really don’t like the fact that there are two different package manager on the system. I feel like that really isn’t such a good idea, at least not using both of them interchangeably. But at the same time people have said allot of positive things about Sabayon, so I am sure they are doing something right, which really makes me want to give it a spin…

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