Sabayon Linux is based on Gentoo and preconfigured for various architectures and desktop environments. The installation process is acomplished through the Anaconda GUI interface so there is no need to muck about in the command line. I went with the XFCE AMD 64 installation.
First boot after installation greeted me with the XFCE loign menu followed by the desktop customized by the Sabayon project to use 2 thin panels at top and bottom. The desktop environment is snappy, there is almost no delay opening a Thunar file manager window and is one of the fastest implementations of XFCE I’ve experienced.
Sabayon doesn’t reinvent the desktop experinece. For instance using the XFCE version won’t install any qt applications instead opting for lightweight GTK-2 based packages. Under light web surfing in Midori while Rigo (Entrophy) update’s in the background things are eerily quiet. CPU processes are so low (2%) that my fan remains idle. I’m expecting this to lead to some minor battery savings.
Fast, so far stable and economical on power usage what are the downsides?
Sitting through an initial update process that takes a few hours can lead to frustration. Sabayon can have hundreds of updates including the package management software which all get. It certainly helps to review the documentation on the wiki throughout the installation process to prevent delays and choose whether to opt for Gentoo’s Portage or Sabayon’s Entrophy to manage your packages.
Entrophy, Sabayon’s Pre-compiled offerings vs Portage Gentoo’s source based software. You get to choose!
Compiling packages from source has stable results however, the entire process does take a long time.
For instance compiling and installing Chromium via Gentoo’s Portage package manger took nearly an hour. Installing the pre-compiled version via Entrophy was quick; maybe a couple minutes. They do warn to choose one package manager and stick to it as swapping back and forth could make the system unstable due to the different versions of packages and dependencies.
The actual compiling of the packages does dominate CPU resources so keep that in mind. Laptop users will want to plug in their system during updates if going the Portage route.
In all my system works beautifully. Wi-fi and hotkeys worked upon installation.
Sabayon’s FAQ wiki page has a great rundown of the differences between their distribution and others like Debian or Ubuntu.
The ability to choose between the two is what really makes Sabayon shine. You can take it easy with Entropy or learn the power of Gentoo via Portage. Portage tells us exactly what we need to do in most cases to get everything to compile politely. So anyone interested in Gentoo can simply install Sabayon and use Portage for everything else. Or take it easy and trust the wonderful Rigo updater or Entrophy if using the command line.
Final Thoughts
In all Sabayon is both a good departure from Ubuntu or Linux Mint and can be customized manually or left as is. Each .iso is optimized for it’s own desktop environment’s best offerings whether that’s Gnome, KDE, XFCE, or MATE.
I tested Sabayon on a System76 Lemur Ultra and found it very responsive, battery power was at about 4hrs which is common for this make and model. The only glitches I have experienced is a relatively slow wifi connection, I suspect there is a bottleneck somewhere but haven’t identified if the cause.
Sabayon is the best example of both Gentoo simplified and a great introduction to multiple desktop environments.
