Released on October 2, 2009, Sabayon 5.0 is jam-packed with all the eye candy a Linux user would want out of the box.  It comes in both GNOME and KDE live DVD editions which can be installed to the hard drive.  In this review, I’ll be touching on some key points for the distro overall.

Installation

The installation interface is still the same. The default journaling file system is EXT4, with XFS, JFS, REISERFS, and EXT3 as other options. There is support for setting up soft-RAID, with LVM as the default disk partitioning scheme. Disk encryption is also supported, however, Sabayon’s support is not at the same level of other Linux distros (namely, Debian or Fedora). Those distros allow for encrypting a physical volume (if you are using LVM). With Sabayon 5, however, encryption is only supported at the logical volume (LV) level. This is not a problem if you are setting up a single logical volume, which is the default, but if you are setting up multiple logical volumes (which is recommended), and want to encrypt all of them.

Package Management

Sulfur is the new name of Sabayon’s package manager’s graphical frontend. Formerly known as SpritzIt, Sulfur does not seem to be as user friendly as Synaptic (Ubuntu) or YUM (Fedora). When working with Sabayon I usually find it easier to simply pull up a terminal and use the traditional “Portage” command line interface. I usually prefer using the command line interface myself, Just simply pull up a terminal, type “emerge  [package name]” and viola!!

The Good

NVIDIA drivers are auto-configured. That means that Compiz works and all you have to do to start using a 3D desktop is to click on the Compiz icon on the desktop.

Also, the system usually auto-configures WLAN card settings. Sabayon 5.0 was able to detect my Atheros card and connect to a wireless network directly after install.

For laptop users, the good news is that Sabayon also works well with multimedia buttons. in most cases, a user will be able to adjust volume, bring up media players and much more through the touch of a button without having to configure anything.

The Bad

On Sabayon 5 GNOME, the IPTables script is not started, and you won’t find a user-friendly graphical firewall client in the default repository. It appears that Sabayon’s developers may not feel a need for a firewall in their distro, or they have an alternate application that does the job of IPTables.

Removable media still has to be mounted manually. This may even be fine with some users depending on personal preference.

Summary

Overall, Sabayon is a good alternative Linux distribution. To experience all it has to offer though, a person would need a computer with at least a decent video card, and at least 2GB of RAM – though it is worth mentioning that Sabayon also gives the option to install a “core” environment. This would allow a user to install a base system and then build the system as they see fit using Portage or one of the graphical frontends. Sabayon’s influence has been growing since it’s early versions, and only time will tell if it is able to stack to big contenders like Ubuntu and Fedora.

Monty Dine : Monty has worked with technology for 15 years, and is also a motorcyclist, musician and licensed pilot. As a Linux enthusiast, his mantra is: "Why use Windows when you can have the whole house?"