Sabayon 7 vs. Ubuntu 11.10 Performance

[crazycheese]

@crazycheese

You seem to like Calculate a lot. I'm going to check it out.
Also, have you heard of/used Toorox?

Yes and no.
The problem is, although they have done many things right in terms of becoming ready gentoo to desktop in under 1 minute without castrating functionality:
+ they have very improved genkernel, as far as I know it is nearly rewritten from scratch. The current hardware is DETECTED by it and only needed modules are added into initramfs, resulting in very fast start and small kernel size.
+ they have installer
+ they recommend to use gentoo tools to do stuff, for example - portato if gfx frontend for portage in needed.
+ they have formed all their changes around acknowledged official overlay, which is attachable in layman when using normal gentoo
+ it is possible to convert raw gentoo into calculate simply by switching profiles. And vice versa.
+ they provide functional desktop for working environiment as well as server
+ they provide tools to manage these network and provide tools for windows-compability (samba, activedirectory etc), useful for companies for example (one of which is the primary supporter - calculate ltd)
+ they have working bugtracker, working irc, working site, speaking english (although russians) and their site has english version.
+ company is behind their support, with full-time devs. And yet they are completely opensource. They offer integration services for price.

But:
- their profiles is currently something to be desired
-- lots of software which,.... *tada*... gentoo itself is unable to correctly strip due to portage limitation.
--- means, if you want to just remove one app, you have to switch from binary profile to normal profile (building every update from source), or there will be problems in form of segfaults. And 1) rebuild the system 2) every new update will be built just like normal gentoo does. No advantages of binary packages.
- their decisions regarding to system variables may be not ideal. I consider them a bit weird.
- subconscious thing: prebuilt gentoo always feels not right..

So currently, its nice and all, but
1) you expect a little bit more out of the box and fuzz-less (and less problems) if you have zero understanding about gentoo.
2) you shake your head if you use gentoo daily, as you possibly not use a lot from that; you possibly will have to strip a lot; means you possibly are faster achieving your system via *stage3* (bottom-up), than by stripping calculate (switching profile to basic, adding soft, correcting use flags etc)

Still, they are near-er to gentoo-way, than sabayon. Or funtoo(less).

Didn't use toorox, will give a try

[BlueJayofEvil]

@crazycheese

You seem to like Calculate a lot. I'm going to check it out.
Also, have you heard of/used Toorox?

[crazycheese]

It's their freedom and choice to follow their own path. Just because it doesn't suit you doesn't make it "completely useless." Not everyone wants or needs the "advantages" their parent distros have.
If you don't like a distro, don't use it. There's plenty of others out there that may or may not match your needs.

Thats because I care about linux distributions. Of course its their choice, but there are obvious rules that will make the life easier or harder depending solely on strategy. Synergy is one of those rules, its nice when people exchange whats done and charge for real work, instead of putting themself into patent barricades. Its nice when Chakra builds from Arch and fixes stream between, its for everyone of them to dump the unused features - but its much faster to exchange than re-invent. The existence of distribution should be questioned by its own makers and proven to be of need, else it will only exist for their own ego, which is waste of good effort. For example, currently Russia tries to build "national" OS and they have contracted several companies. Thats not a problem. The problem is, they could have invested in Debian and use just 3-4 developers to produce several decoration packages to make "national" OS. No, they re-invent wheels, opensource wheels.

Fabio and one of the other Sabayon devs are official Gentoo developers. Fabio is working on getting Entropy accepted upstream last I heard. They have no intention of going completely their own route. They wish to be an optional supplement to an already great distro/system.

I have read about it yesterday, I salute his patience and wisdom. They should think about joining effort with Calculate where possible. Im not Calculate developer, but I know exactly why Calculate exists and how they tick - they did a lot and its all free in their Gentoo overlay. Its one of the things I love about gentoo - that it has a lot of "-meta". Not different packages, not different distributions, just power of use flags.

[BlueJayofEvil]

Use calculate linux instead. At least they have done it right(but not ideal). They are using Gentoo possibilities without cutting or wiping its functionality under the carpet.
For me, sabayon has used gentoo to create binary form and re-invented the wheel (entropy, sulfur). Had they pushed portage to include binary functions on par to those of apt, would be whole different situation. Shame, actually.

I agree.

But now, when they have "binarized" the distro, it is technically no different than those of Ubuntu, because they ship with generic CFLAGS and Usettings. Gentoo advantages are not used.

Sabayon isn't exactly targeting advanced Gentoo-lovers. But you are correct that the generic CFLAGS and such are wasted potential.

And I don't like Chakra for the same reason. They should keep in mind why the exist (because its takes too long to tweak raw Arch into *that* usable KDE desktop, not-speaking about out of the box experience of newbies).

The Chakra team has their own ideals and values they wish to follow. Arch was simply their base until they could become what they wanted to. Same goes for many distros.

If they go their own path, they will become completely useless, because their raw parent gives them the advantages and sticking together except for few parts where it does not make sense makes two distros great.

It's their freedom and choice to follow their own path. Just because it doesn't suit you doesn't make it "completely useless." Not everyone wants or needs the "advantages" their parent distros have.
If you don't like a distro, don't use it. There's plenty of others out there that may or may not match your needs.

That said, I wish Sabayon developers integrate themself into Gentoo family without loosing what they gained, or at least look back; instead of going completely on their own by cutting own roots.

Fabio and one of the other Sabayon devs are official Gentoo developers. Fabio is working on getting Entropy accepted upstream last I heard. They have no intention of going completely their own route. They wish to be an optional supplement to an already great distro/system.

[crazycheese]

Sabayon never claimed to be Gentoo or even a replacement for it. It's a primarily desktop-oriented distro with a focus on an out-of-the-box experience (YMMV).

Use calculate linux instead. At least they have done it right(but not ideal). They are using Gentoo possibilities without cutting or wiping its functionality under the carpet.
For me, sabayon has used gentoo to create binary form and re-invented the wheel (entropy, sulfur). Had they pushed portage to include binary functions on par to those of apt, would be whole different situation. Shame, actually.
But now, when they have "binarized" the distro, it is technically no different than those of Ubuntu, because they ship with generic CFLAGS and Usettings. Gentoo advantages are not used.

They developed their binary package manager to aid in this approach. Sabayon is much more independent now because of this.
They were derived from Gentoo originally, but sort of like Chakra is doing, they are making their own path while keeping a nod to their origin.

Another reason I don't like Sabayon at all.
I have used Arch prior to Gentoo, and its way less usable (excluding their nice binary kernel which simplifies everything a lot).
And I don't like Chakra for the same reason. They should keep in mind why the exist (because its takes too long to tweak raw Arch into *that* usable KDE desktop, not-speaking about out of the box experience of newbies).
If they go their own path, they will become completely useless, because their raw parent gives them the advantages and sticking together except for few parts where it does not make sense makes two distros great.

Gentoo is Gentoo; Sabayon is Sabayon. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses. Each has their own appeal to different users.

This is exactly why calculate is greater than sabayon. Because calculate is "calculate + gentoo". Its like being a variety to achieve goals, while keeping roots for synergy; instead of becoming separate incomplete entity to reinvent bicycles.
Same reasons for example, why I personally ditched Daniel Robbins Funtoo. While Gentoo has policy of staying close to upstream version and labeling modifications as such, Robbins Grub2 (and many more) plainly modify the behaviour without allowing options. Like he said himself, its *his* version of Gentoo, for *his* goals. The meta- in gentoo becomes lost.

That said, I wish Sabayon developers integrate themself into Gentoo family without loosing what they gained, or at least look back; instead of going completely on their own by cutting own roots.
Ubuntu did that, but to lesser degree and yet Ubuntu is more on their goal area than Sabayon (where it overlaps with Sabayon), because from what they decided to pick up along with them (package manager) is more usable for their goal than Sabayon, which started (nearly) from scratch.

[crazycheese]

Also, trying to get a hang of the whole emerge thing, first of all the specific Entropy thing just updates weekly core and security and then just sits there using 100% CPU to no end ( I know i'm running a live system but damn ). And using emerge directly ( although I don't know if it still should work !? ) like "emerge sys-process/htop" yields that there is no such package, i guess my Gentoo n00biness is at hand here as I did not go in the whole overlays info.

eix htop
emerge -pv htop
... do some modifications to use flags, if neccessary.
.... like echo "sys-process/htop blabla -bla">>/etc/portage/package.use
emerge -q htop
cfg-update -u

[rogerdv]

I was referring to average desktop users, who are limited to web surfing, mp3 playing etc. like my family members and friends who are not tech-savy. Usability is one of the most important thing that these users look for. Apple would be a fitting example. It is liked by users, because it is much more usable (compared to windows and most linux distros) , and stable.

This benchmark is not for those people. It is for people like me, who cares about what distro reads faster. Faster reads means that my apps start faster (I think).

[Licaon]

I'll have to reinstall an older system as the main drive broke:
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 1700+ 1467MHz skt. A
Cooler: Titan D5TB/CU5B Al, copper core
M/B: ASUS A7N266-VM SE v1.05 ( nForce 220D/420 ) mATX
MEM: 2x512Mb DDR1 400MHz NoName
VID: ATI Radeon 9200SE 128Mb DDR1-64bit AGP4x DVI/VGA/S-Video
SND: nForce SoundStorm DolbyDigital 5.1 integrated ( Realtek ALC650 & S/PDIF Coax+Optical Out )
NET: nForce Ethernet 10/100Mbps integrat ( RealTek 8201L PHY )
HDD: Maxtor 40Gb ( b0rken possibly by a power failure ) + 20Gb ATA100
DVD: LG HL ST 4163B
FDD: 1.44" Noname
PSU: Noname 350W
Case: Noname white
Display: Philips 170S 17" LCD

I'm using Virtualbox on my current machine, so yeah maybe things get skewed a bit but the system is in another city and I only have the disk drives at hand. Virtualbox settings limited to 1024Mb RAM, 128Mb vRAM, 1 core of 3200Mhz with executive cap of 46% ( so that it gets closer to 1467MHz although I think it's actually better than the real hardware )

Long intro, I've been testing some lighter 32bit distros *buntu flavoured and Sabayons own flavours and I've been pretty surprised to see that even Ubuntu Unity works smoother than Sabayon XFCE.
The system used to run Debian Sid KDE 4.4 ( IIRC ) but it felt pretty sluggish at times.
My top so far:
*Lubuntu
*ElementaryOS 0.1 ( looking good but not on par regarding translations )
*Xubuntu
*Mint 11
*Ubuntu plain ( but the interface is still a mess )
*Sabayon XFCE
*Sabayon GNOME
*Sabayon KDE

Also, trying to get a hang of the whole emerge thing, first of all the specific Entropy thing just updates weekly core and security and then just sits there using 100% CPU to no end ( I know i'm running a live system but damn ). And using emerge directly ( although I don't know if it still should work !? ) like "emerge sys-process/htop" yields that there is no such package, i guess my Gentoo n00biness is at hand here as I did not go in the whole overlays info.

[BlueJayofEvil]

*snip*

Sabayon never claimed to be Gentoo or even a replacement for it. It's a primarily desktop-oriented distro with a focus on an out-of-the-box experience (YMMV). They developed their binary package manager to aid in this approach. Sabayon is much more independent now because of this.
They were derived from Gentoo originally, but sort of like Chakra is doing, they are making their own path while keeping a nod to their origin.

Gentoo is Gentoo; Sabayon is Sabayon. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses. Each has their own appeal to different users.

[crazycheese]

What are you talking about? Sabayon can use Gentoo's Portage system if the user chooses to.

RIGHT. Sabayon can become Gentoo, but only if user chooses to. Then, it will eventually end as a mess..

Also, sabayon is gentoo pushed into specific pattern and delivered as monolithic block. There is nothing Gentoo in Sabayon. Calculate Linux is more Gentoo, yet, imagine this: when they added binary profiles - they locked the default applications list. This means, if you do not want ANYTHING installed from binary profile, you have to switch from building everything from source. Emerge limitation. Additionally, unless you recompile every package (purge tree) when going to source profile(ie normal gentoo), the system will start introducing segfaults, more with every update. Happens, because your setting and your choice of flags irreversably affect other packages which are compiled with different settings in surviving binary part, resulting in wrong pointers and linking breakages.

Short: if you want source, do source. If you do binary, you have to be extremely accurate if you deviate from factory binary build rules. Best forget source approach at all. This means Sabayon was Gentoo, when it was compiled at "factory", home of sabayon developers. After this, sabayon is NOT gentoo.

Additionally, because Sabayon looses all benefits of source-based distro(and will start breaking if "user chooses to") - it ultimately ends as half-arsed binary distro. This is because Sabayon looses in a) amount of users and b) package management(compare possibilities of apt to entropy to understand) from the eyes of normal people.

So, if you want better Gentoo, you have to improve Gentoo. Funtoo is very good try to solve part of Gentoo problems. Exherbo may solve ALL Gentoo problems someday. Archlinux (if compared to) made Gentoo "simple" by cutting everything "complex" and producing basic system in binary form, yet still requiring knowledge and cutting essence of Gentoo in the process. Calculate Linux solves bit of Gentoo problems. But Sabayon went way into different direction. Someone uses it. Good! But it is not Gentoo.

Consider this:
I have two three-terrabyte disks, and I want to partition them in GPT placing system and /home on first drive with ext4 and using second drive as big file storage (in GPT too) with XFS and attaching it as link to several accounts (in /home).
The system should have minimal LXDE environiment with scientific applications. Im sure I will never print, use webcameras etc. I also want to run several webservers on machine, so I need kernel without modules with only hardware I have. All - optimized for current CPU.

Can you do this with Sabayon? Which is faster approach - using stage3 or using Sabayon image and start cut-and-slice process?
Of course, if you replace Gentoo cfg files and manual setup with very flexible graphical tools, it will be possible. It will improve Gentoo too. But never, if you cut any of its functionality or go in compromises.