I understand what you are saying, but we have used the update installer thing often as bugs do creep up after a release. That is why when you load up Sabayon for the first time, you see the update installer icon. This is something that can't be helped and for convenience of our users, they can simply hit update installer instead of going thru an entire new download. This is a benefit to people that are limited with internet. It's also a benefit on our limited servers so they are not constantly overloaded.
Sabayon is not obsolete without internet - use it as is and simple download a new iso as they come out. One doesn't have to do updates or install additional software if they don't want to. They are gonna have issues if they need additional software to support their hardware, such as a drivers or simply changing the theme if they don't like the default one. Nobody said it was obsolete if you didn't have hardware, but be prepared to struggle if it's not 100% to what you need/want.
GNU Linux is what it is. A distro doesn't have standardization as to what is on it or not. A distro works as vast as possible and filling the needs of the majority. Take a look at all the spin offs of Ubuntu and Debian - these spin offs are due to people customizing it to their needs. They don't like default so they create and add what they want. As far as releasing free software, it's the only way some people have to get their software out to others. They also depend on free hosting by others as they can't afford to setup a place to handle the pressure. Source Forge is a perfect example for developers to publish their work to so others can benefit. No matter what part of the world you are in, you have people that are poor and can take advantage of using those sites. Sabayon depends on donations as it is costing money to host the web site, provide downloads, and even develop the software. Fabio can't sit and code 24/7 as he needs to work to eat also. The same for all the devs - they donate their time outside of their life. So it's amazing and a blessing to be able to even get the "free software" by any means at all. We can't be ubuntu and ship millions of discs out, we don't have that sort of backing. I don't know any distro that will ship you updates or bug fixes via mail. People should be supporting their distro they use, it's not about "free" it's about keeping it going. No funds = no more. You got to look at the big picture as frustrating as it is for some, but again, it's not Sabayon's fault, it's the reality of life.
Sabayon tries to make a release as flawless as possible, but it never happens that a perfect release comes out, so we need to address it and pending on the situation will determine how the fix is applied. Recreating a distro for 2 lines of code is time consuming and the focus is now to get Sabayon 4 out as soon as possible. This is the first time we have ever released a maintenance release on the same version as a benefit for the people to save them hours of updates. You can always grab 3.5 and try that since you won't be doing updates. I'm not sure if the update bug is present in that one or not, but regardless still, the issue is not your problem. You've been advised what to do in my prior post and hopefully it's easily solvable so you can enjoy your Sabayon.
Go to Installation part of forum and make a new topic
Post hardware info
md5sum check, burn verified?
cheatcode used
errors - use the Alt F1 combination to see where or what things are getting stuck
