Review: Sabayon 7 KDE + GNOME + Xfce

I also tried Sabayon 7 the XFCE edition and had plenty of issues as well, I got it all working eventually though but this is not a distro for newbies. Im a bit confused as to who the distro makers are aiming this one at.

A lot of stuff does not work out of the box which simply should, you want user configuration after an install get ready to hit the CLI as their is no GUI for it, come on guys this is the 21st century and even Microsoft can manage that one. If I want to configure everything via CLI I would just opt for a Slackware install instead.

I had the same Entropy Store problems, its also slow and primitive compared to Synaptic.

Not sure why some distro's default to Midori, it couldnt properly render Sabayons own front page, its a nice simple browser and great for emergencies on Live/Rescue CD's but not quite ready for full time use on a full installation.

Sabayon 7 certainly can't match distro's such as Linux Mint or PCLinuxOS for ease of use.

Currently trying out the latest PCLinuxOS XFCE and its very nice only one sound/pulseaudio issue which I have partially resolved and hope to have it fully resolved in an hour or so, this could be my next permanent distro, can I just say Pulseaudio still sucks, im glad PCLinuxOS is one of the few distro's that defaults most sound stuff to Alsa unfortunately Skype has issues and everything else Vlc, Rhythmbox etc. all work fine.

unfortunately Skype has issues

I have never installed Skype on any linux distro without having to go in and correct the mic settings at the very least. Since Microbully now owns skype, I don't see it getting any better.

But +1 on the pulseaudio fiasco...I don't know the mechanics or reasons for the constant problems with PA, but I do know that it's been a pain in my side since day 1.

Fixed all my PCLinuxOS sound issues with a quick visit to the forums and Skype now works fine as well.

Been 2 years since i last used PCLinuxOS its certainly vastly improved as it went downhill for awhile they now seem to have pulled themselves together and it shows in the distro, will be keeping this one around as it looks like a stayer to me.

Last thing I have to install is VMWare which is a nightmare on just about any distro with a modern kernel, wish me luck :)

Vmware seems to be a nightmare on any distro with any kernel....at least it was last time I tried it before I gave up and switched to qemu/kvm/virtualbox. :P

I dont believe this VMWare Workstation 7.1.4 installed without a hitch and no patching required its a bleeding miracle I tell you!

Well actually it turns out PCLos is running a fairly conservative 2.6.38 kernel which VMware likes, plus I didnt even have to configure user permissions on my serial and parallel ports or do any module blacklisting which is also a first, PCLos has it all set up correctly out of the box, looks like im switching to this distro for good.

Cant stand VirtualBox not tried the others.

VirtualBox is good for certain instances I think. Like "I want to try out this distro quickly on a relatively standard hardware setup with minimal fuss" but you don't need much in the way of portability or anything. Or "I want a little Windows VM to run Netflix". For any serious virtualization (servers etc.) it's kvm all the way.