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I don't really have the time now, but there needs to be a good open source OS that gamers can use to aviod the M$ tax. I've heard that Sabayon Linux ( http://www.sabayonlinux.org/ ) may be this (someday), but this is really the way to start to erode M$ on the desktop. Gamers can hold a LOT of sway over the market because ppl generally see them as "power users" who can advise on hardware/software.

I also hear from many people (including myself) that games are the only reason to run Windoze any more. Freedom is at hand!

Basically, everything. If Pidgin 2.5.0 comes out tomorrow with new features, I want it by the day after tomorrow. If a totally new and interesting app comes out then I want it to appear in the respository in a reasonable timeframe. When KDE 4.0.0 came out, I could have emerged it from Portage less than a week later (I chose not to, though).

With Ubuntu, I would either have to compile it myself outside of Synaptic or wait six months for the next Ubuntu release. They enact a "feature freeze" at each release, so that *only* security updates come out through Synaptic and *no* new features or non-security bugfixes may be added. There is an Ubuntu repository called "backports" where they release newer apps, but in my experience this isn't very up-to-date either compared to Gentoo/Sabayon's Portage tree.

For most people, upgrading every six months is often enough. I'm not running a critical production server and I'm also a techie, so a 6-month release cycle is unacceptable to me (let alone 3+ yrs for something like Debian). I like having the ability to install a new and untested piece of software without giving up the benefits of package management. I've heard that there are other distros out there that offer this with a binary package system, but I've not tried one yet. The Sabayon devs are working on a binary project called Entropy and it's supposed to be compatible with Portage as well. People are already saying it works great, but I don't quite trust it yet. Looks promising though.

come now, come now -- all the cool kids are on sabayon these days. and with any luck, the sabayon website's stylesheet will finally be fixed by the time windows 7 is released.

You should try Sabayon. I believe it addresses all the issues you mention.

what about sabayonlinux http://www.sabayonlinux.org/ i don't think it's exactly what you want
but i can't think of anything that comes closer!

I should have mentioned that the review is more for people with prior experience with Gentoo. A lot of Gentoo devs and users read my blog and I wanted to give them an in-depth technical review of what I thought was good, and what wasn't so good, from the perspective of the person who created Gentoo. So it's still a review by definition, just intended for those who may have some ability to address my critiques :) If you are new to Gentoo I would recommend starting with Sabayon Linux (see http://www.sabayonlinux.org/ ) rather than Gentoo itself as the install process is better and a lot more is done for you.

I don't know about your specific video card and I definitely wouldn't call myself a guru, but I'm using an ATI video card and a Creative Audigy soundcard and I've found that Sabayon Linux is great. You might want to give it a shot. It's very visually appealing and polished, and seems to be be fairly quick-paced and innovative. The developers are still excited about their project and I've found the community to be one of its greatest assets. I've talked to both of Sabayon's most prominent developers, and though I am the most abject of Linux newbs I didn't get a feeling of elitism from either of them.

Parenthetical note: Sabayon Linux is based on Gentoo, but is pre-compiled and thus won't cost you 20-26 hours of compile time to install. You can find good people on #sabayon on irc.freenode,org(or the "Get Live Help" icon on the desktop) who are usually willing to help you if they can.

<rant>Be aware, should you be tempted to try #gentoo, that the same definitely can't be said of that community from my experience. A lot of them hate Sabayon (your guess is as good as mine) and... yeah. I've been banned from the #gentoo IRC channel, on my second sentence, for asking a question. But that's a tale for another day. </rant>

Well if the binaries installed from gentoo livecd is not enourgh for you, you may be interested in those gentoo-based distributions:
sabayonlinux: http://www.sabayonlinux.org/
BinToo: http://bintoo.sourceforge.net/
vidalinux: http://vidalinux.com/

you obviously haven't used Linux or a while. Well, that or the only thing you've seen is WM, Black Box something equally as easy on the resources. At home, I'm running Sabayon Linux with Gnome, XFCE and KDE, all enhanced with AIGLX. Quite frankly, my desktop blows away anything with the Windows label, including Vista, in performance and appearance, both while doing stuff (minimizing, closing, moving windows and so on), and while sitting still.

If you're looking for a beauty contest, Linux wins hands down as long as you are using something newer than Redhat 3!

This is why I use my Linux box more and more every day. By the time M$ requires the Vista upgrade, I won't need it anymore. Besides, AIGLX, XGL and Beryl are so much cooler than Aero.

Check out Sabayon

And Sayonora and Kororaa and Emission, etc.
VidaLinux, lxnay, Sabayon....

Excellent point! These distro's are even easier than a stage3 and still give you the ablility to update everything as you wish by setting up your use flags and running
emerge -uDav rebuild
(or something like that).