Sabayon speed (and sabayon vs other distros) and speed poll

[rozojc]

Hi, I hope I'm posting this in the wrong forum, if not, pls exucuse me (and my english)

I'm an (I suppose) "intermediate" linux user, currently running on Ubuntu dapper. I'm thinking of switching distro, and I am really interested in trying out Sabayon, however, I'm looking for a fast distro, and my thoughts are as follows:

Sabayon is based in Gentoo, which is supposed to be really fast. On the other hand, the standard Sabayon install is based on binaries... Is Sabayon fast (a hard drive install)? is it faster than Ubuntu? Is the boot time faster? responsiveness?

Also, another possibility I'm looking at is going for Zenwalk, which is Slack based, and is lightning fast. The problem is that it's XFCE based and I'd rather use KDE... Does anyone know how Sabayon compares to Zenwalk?

Bigger question, taking into account the fact that I want to go to a fast distro, is Sabayon what I'm looking for? (I'm thinking the CD version, not the DVD one)

[mongoose]

You can also install KDE into Zenwalk using netpkg/slapt-get or just good old installpkg, once you get the system installed.

As far as your speed concerns go, I'd say that the question is somewhat flawed. Each distro is only as fast as what you do with it, really. If you clutter it up with big programs and services and stuff, it'll go slow, if you tweak it and trim services and stuff, it will go fast. That said, on newer machines, i686 compiled packages/distros should be faster than i386 compiled ones, like Debian, or i486 ones, like Slackware. The first i686 compiled distro that comes to mind is Arch linux - it's plenty fast, and fairly up to date with packages and stuff. You may also want to look into Frugalware, if you dont mind some bugs here and there. Like you mentioned, Zenwalk is also a good choice, and so is Vector (based on Slackware too, uses KDE by default in it's bigger versions) - Vector is often called Slackware on steriods or the like, so it'd probably suit your needs.

Another important consideration though, is what your needs are as far as packages, and whether the distro you choose makes it easy to install new ones. In my opinion, Slackware is a pain in this regard, as you gotta go hunting for packages and dependencies, and packages are often out of date on the sites with extra packages like linuxpackages.net. Sabayon is great for that because you can install all the packages available for Gentoo on it (though you have to spend time compiling them first). Arch and Frugalware also have a decent number of packages, but nowhere near Debian, so that might be something you want to consider too.

So in the end, it all comes down to what your needs and requirements are. If Ubuntu works perfectly for you in all other regards, I suggest you do some searching on the Ubuntu forums on how to make it faster, I'm sure it's been discussed before. Also look into the "rcconf" utility and carefully remove services that start on boot, that should shave off some time from your startup (though I'd google for whatever you're about to disable, just so you know what it does and if you can boot without it or not).

Good luck with your search, let me know how it goes.

[cvill64]

I hate to remind you, but this is SL forum, you wanna talk about debian and such I suggest going to their mailiing list and forums

SL is preconfigured gentoo, once you install, you can recompile everything to your specification and have it just as fast, there you have it

also SL is preconfigured to do a lot of things other distros have you do manually to set up

[shoarthing]

Hi, I hope I'm posting this in the wrong forum, if not, pls exucuse me (and my english)

I'm an (I suppose) "intermediate" linux user, currently running on Ubuntu dapper. I'm thinking of switching distro, and I am really interested in trying out Sabayon, however, I'm looking for a fast distro, and my thoughts are as follows:

Sabayon is based in Gentoo, which is supposed to be really fast. On the other hand, the standard Sabayon install is based on binaries... Is Sabayon fast (a hard drive install)? is it faster than Ubuntu? Is the boot time faster? responsiveness?

Also, another possibility I'm looking at is going for Zenwalk, which is Slack based, and is lightning fast. The problem is that it's XFCE based and I'd rather use KDE... Does anyone know how Sabayon compares to Zenwalk?

Bigger question, taking into account the fact that I want to go to a fast distro, is Sabayon what I'm looking for? (I'm thinking the CD version, not the DVD one)

- "fast"? - hmm: IMHO Sabayon is relatively slow to boot due to its exceptionally thorough device detection, then [if relevant in your case] the slooooow initiation of the proprietory [beta] NVIDIA driver; followed by the [quite brisk] loading of the Beryl manager . . but very few if any other distros offer equivalent device-detection or eye-candy, so if you want these qualities you'll have [at present] to put up with this relatively slow startup.

. . once running, optimal "speed" is up to your optimisations of a compiled kernel & matching make.conf options, then your compilation of applications using these optimisations . . the default Sabayon/Gentoo kernel is as "fast" as any other 2.6.18 kernel.

Personally - running SMP K8 hardware - I find Sabayon performs fine outta-the-box.

[random guy]

I hate to remind you, but this is SL forum, you wanna talk about debian and such I suggest going to their mailiing list and forums

nothing personally to you but why do some people snub eachother about what distros eachother use. for the fairly expirienced user (and u are an expert) it becomes clear that linux is linux and the distro doesnt really matter so much. i mean i could install ubuntu and take off apt-get and put on portage with snapshot from here or gentoo site or from a random ftp somewhere and it will all be the same... distro doesnt really matter and i think it is appropriate to compare distros with eachother. in the kororaa forums i asked if anyone knew comparisons between kororaa and sabayon which seemed to me to be very similar at that sime both being binary installs of gentoo and having propiety drivers (vr. 0.2) and ran xgl...

anyway back to original topic ya the question is flawed because it has to be more specific. if you want fast boot then sabayon may not be the key, but if you dont want to manually install drivers than sabayon is probably one of the best you can use. if you want "speed" for programs i guess they are all the same if you decide to compile from source which you can do for any one of them. in terms of getting apps portage is slower because it compiles from source but after that initial slowness you see a significantly faster system. it is all on your preference and what you need (desktop, server, also considering the quality of the system and the speed of a net connection..)

[cvill64]

its not called snubbing, its called asking experts of their respectable distros for help rather than on a different distro, Linux is the keneral, other than the commands that work on everybody's distro, they are different in the way they handle init.d, package management, etc etc. So its better to discuss their distros on their forums as they can tell you more than we can

SL is what it is. Its fast, made for the performance desktop, pure gentoo, and can be fully recompiled for whatever you want. We have a slower boot due to services and drivers and hardware recognition.

If you don't like, recompile grub, took off optioins you don't need, and you'll see that if you do a llittle reasearch you can have boot up in under 30 secs

[lxnay]

yes, I completely agree with cvill64.
And I'd add that the boot is slow because we need to be compatible (read: working out of the box) with a lot of things, like USB/Firewire drives, OpenGL capable video cards...etc.

[random guy]

perhaps snubbing was the wrong term but there should be more general unity amoung linux users. i did just noticed that this was in "sabayon linux general discussion" i guess it would be more appropriate in "off the wall." but it is still knowledge that he is seeking and it is linux related, a lot of stuff in off the wall are not linux related which is fine...

thing is if he went to ubuntu forums and then to sabayon forums and then to zenwalk forums and only asked about that specific distro than how will he decide what he likes? i mean then he would only be able to say "is your distro good? what does it have to offer?" the answer to that would be the same for all of them i guess. i mean there is no disrespect to sabayon or any of its developers to discuss its positives and negitives in comparison to other distros, heck that may shed light on more innovative ideas that either one has and the other doesnt or that neither have and need to be developed.

like right now we have disscussed sabayon in comparision to other distros and have come up with what seems so far to be the only "flaw" in sabayon so far which is a slow boot. originally i would just ignore the slow boot but because of the suggestions i can deal with it in a smart way and improve my system. then we look at the fact that some people are not going to be able to do this because they dont understand grub much (i havent done this yet so i dont know if i will have problems doing it myself or not but i am not afraid to ask for help if i run into a wall). maybe some programmer will look at this thread and think "hey i should make an app that helps make configureing the detection of devices at boot etc. easier to configure and make linux better"

[kazuya1977]

Sabayon is very impressive to me. I spoke high praises of it accompanied by some screenshots to the folks in Ubuntu forum. They really took to liking it. I like the speed and robustness not to mention eye-candy of the OS. It has greatly improved from the RR4 versions I tried which were good for me. I am still skeptical about being able to manage it in the future. As I am a newb in Gentoo standard.

I am willing to learn though.

Also can the liveDVD be used to recover MBR or to modify the bootloader to see other OSes after install.

Can I use the liveDVD to repair an installation without losing my datas and profiles?

[ajez]

@ random guy
you can't really appreciate adavantages or the "problems" of a linux distribution if you don't try it ...

this forum I think is not the right place where someone can make a comparison between more distros ..

you said: maybe some programmer will look at this thread and think "hey i should make an app that helps make configureing the detection of devices at boot etc. easier to configure and make linux better"

yes, it's true, but you can't live hoping someone else makes an application for you . this is not windows were you are restricted in how to configure the system . The best thing in linux is that's fully customizable, even with some risks .. how many time i've broken my linux installation! the real beauty is to learn how to optimize linux for your hardware! this forum is made to help you in optimizing sabayon or resolv users problem, not promoting sabayon .. if you want a OS simple & stable, go buy windows (also if isn't so secure) or a Mac ..

PS: why don't YOU try to make an application to easily configure boot hw detection?

PS2: sry for my probably bad english & I didn't want to attack anyone personally