Well,
I had enough with some problems with FC and decided to give Sabayon a try.
Bittorrent ended up taking 4 days for the 3G DVD. Fortunately the checksum
checked out when it was all said and done or I would probably have cried.
When the DVD boots you get a menu where you can
run it live
install a music version which I guess has a realtime kernel
install using a GUI
install using a text I/F
install a kiosk version
and some other options I forgot
The home page claims the best multimedia distro available. It certainly has a
nicely configured KDE with a ton of slick tools. It will let you choose
between two different accelerated 3D modes. Comes with some very nice and
exciting looking desktop designs.
During install it asks for root passwd, and the main user (probably to let
that one su to root) and you can add additional users. This is where the
warning applies.
As is standard during install you can just tell it to mount your home
partition without asking if you are sure you don't want to format it. Then if
you make an existing user be the normal user all is fine. (Provided your
earlier version of KDE does not conflict with the newer one).
But if you add another user which already exists it will delete that users
home dir and create a new one with the same name! Absolutely insane! I was
ready to send a nastygram to whomever.
It loaded the binary nvidia driver but only asks if you want accelerated 3D
GUI when running live on the DVD. During install you have to figure it out
yourself.
Being based on Gentoo/Debian makes for a wake up as many things are not the
same as the more common RH type system. In fact attempting to configure my
monitor had to be done by hand in xorg or using an out of date xconfig
program, which still requires manual intervention. There was no GUI to
configure the network after install and took a bit of digging to discover a
network text tool.
Once one is past the learning curve it does look very very interesting. There
is a high degree of eye candy to keep you excited for some time.
Now if they just did not have the screwup on wiping out an existing user dir,
kind a like Mepis did at one point where it wiped a whole home partition
without warning. This could easily be a top contender for any desktop.
There is no shortage on applications and is clearly aimed to make the
experience fun. When Gentoo came out they had they also had a fun look, but
this is no doubt the best I've seen so far.
Did I say it wiped out an existing user dir?! That really pissed me off... :(
Meanwhile I'm figuring out how to use debugfs to try to recover the data I
don't have backed up.
--Steve Szmidt
"They that would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
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