First Impressions of Sabayon Linux

chix4mat writes "Techgage takes a first look at the upcoming Gentoo-based distro 'Sabayon.' It's a feature-filled Live DVD that allows you to install within minutes. Users are treated to a Vista-esque KDE theme, with transparent windows The greatest feature of the distro is the hardware and software support. DVD movies work from the start in addition to audio, bluetooth, WiFi and even XGL."

Comments

Program Naming

[ronkronk]

Why do so many linux programmers insist on such crazy naming conventions. Sabayon? Changing a perfectly servicable and pragmagic GNOME Meeting to "Ekiga"?

I use linux both at home and at work, so I'm not some anti-linux zealot or something- I think it's a legitimate question to raise. On my mac laptop, I have a handy app for browsing mDNS networks called Rendezvous Browser (since mDNS was once called Rendezvous).
The name is simple and describes perfectly what the program does. On the other hand, 90% of the linux applications available have names that look like they were chosen by picking random letters and squishing them together.
I'm sure that the programmers think they've very clever by choosing a name that means something in some obscure language- or they just thing the name sounds cool- but that simple lack of meaningful names is detrimental. If I start up a GNOME session and want to use network meeting functionality, how is there any possible way that I could guess that "Ekiga" is the application I'm looking for?

Re:Program Naming

[Foofoobar]

My wife has an aversion to Ubuntu because of the name. I tell her it's awesome but she just seems to be hung up on the name. I must admit that the name didn't sell me on the product either but now that I use it, I swear by it.

Linux could use a good marketing team; grassroots can do alot but good marketing is what pushes it over the edge into the mainstream.

Re:Program Naming

[6OOOOO]

I generally agree with you. On the other hand, though, consider the importance of brand recognition, and distinction from the competition. Imagine if Firefox had been named "Web Browser," or "Web Site Viewer." It might have worked out, but I'm guessing it would have been tough.

There is definitely something to be said for a unique, even quirky identifier--the software becomes a particular thing to be desired and discussed, instead of a tool to be taken for granted.

Re:Program Naming

[TheViewFromTheGround]

Interesting. I think Ubuntu is an okay name, myself. It means something and reflects the software's lineage. All the Kubuntu/Xubuntu/Edubuntu names grate me to no end -- meaningless and cutesy. Why not just call it Ubuntu: Education Edition? The flip side is that Apple, being brilliant, called their operating system "OS TEN", just like they call their mail program Mail and so forth. The Ubuntu project does get this, to some degree, with entries like "Web (Firefox)" in their menus.

Re:Program Naming

[ToxikFetus]

Product Naming Conventions by Platform

Apple: Prepend 'i' to the product name: iMac, iPod, iBall, etc.
Windows: Add "Visual," "Explorer," or "Tycoon" to the product name.
Linux: Prepend 'g', 'k', or 'x' to the product name, depending on whether the product is GNOME-centric, KDE-centric, or non-denominational. Alternately, bang head on keyboard.

Re:Program Naming

[digidave]

Web Site Viewer is too generic, but Webfox or Fireweb would have been good. Thundermail definitely sounds like a mail client. It's quite easy to take many names from OSS and change them slightly to have broader appeal.

Konqueror can be Web Konqueror. GIMP can be Gnu Photo. Sunbird can be Sun Calendar.

MySQL, RadRails and OpenOffice are great names.

Re:Program Naming

[$RANDOMLUSER]

There are only 17,576 TLAs, but there are 456,976 FLAs (which, oddly enough, is a TLA).

Re:Program Naming

[Deliveranc3]

To the I want it to just work folks.

These people are devoting their time to making this software, they aren't getting paid.

I'm sure many of you think they're just crazy hippies but the fact is they have motivations, often political/spiritual for why they want people to have access to this software.

This will affect how the software is developed, it's unavoidable, and you would do well to spend a little time actually investigating the mindset of the FOSS community.

These people are giving you certain abilities you didn't have before, that's why you use their software. And they're hoping you won't use those abilities to say steal someone's identity or take away people's jobs... perhaps they are being naive.

Distro's like Ubuntu have interesting names because they hope you'll check wikipedia before complaining and actually take a look at the philosophy underlying the software they are giving you for free.

Re:Program Naming

[greginnj]

You said it, bro!

Why, on my machine, when I want to create a presentation, I have to use something called 'PowerPoint'. For weeks I didn't touch it because I thought it was some sort of weird ACPI tool, and I was shutting down and rebooting enough that I figured I didn't need it.

It turns out I also have an email app called "Outlook" which I thought was a weather forecaster. It hasn't worked well; maybe I should switch -- I see there's a faster version called 'Outlook Express'.

The file system app is called 'Explorer' which is confusingly named the same thing as the web browser.

There's also this thing called "Access" which, as near as I can guess, is a kind of server that's supposed to give everybody on the internet 'access' to my data.

Oh, and I have to click on a button labeled 'Start' to shut down ...

Re:Program Naming

[Almahtar]

Ubuntu is the perfect name for the product. Its meaning is a philosophical standard, and one that the project aims to develop as its defining characteristic. Just because the product doesn't have an english name doesn't make its name inferior. English won't be the primary language in most countries in which Ubuntu will be used, so why should this African distrobution adopt an english name?

Re:Program Naming

[eosp]

Kubuntu at least means something also. Wikipedia says it means "towards humanity" or something like that.

Re:Program Naming

[Red Flayer]

On the other hand, 90% of the linux applications available have names that look like they were chosen by picking random letters and squishing them together.

Well, sabayon is a real word, from the French (not exactly 'some obscure language') -- it's a sauce made with egg yolks, sugar, and wine. It's very nice on fresh fruit, or desserts that have a little tartness to them. Isn't it nicer to have a product named after a nice sauce than to have one that comes from "alphabet soup"?

As to Ekiga, there might be some association in Japanese -- or maybe not.

Either way, what's the problem with naming a product something distinctive? You know, something that people will remember? Or would you rather have all things named descriptively? Why do we buy a Honda Accord or Nissan Altima, instead of a "[Honda|Nissan] Mid-class Sedan"? Doesn't that just confuse the issue when car manufacturers refuse to name their products according to what they do? I mean, it's a real pain in the butt for me to recall that a Dodge Ram is a Dodge Large Pickup Truck.

Re:Program Naming

[misleb]

I'm sure that the programmers think they've very clever by choosing a name that means something in some obscure language- or they just thing the name sounds cool-

Or they are just being whimsical can don't really care if the the name is business friendly. Most are just programming for fun. I wholeheartedly support the practice of "strange" naming. If Linux, or more generally, FOSS ever loses its whimsical and 'fun' nature, it'll be dead. Programmers get enough marketting pressure and other business related distractions at work. They don't need to come home to their hobby project and get the same pressure to sell themselves to users.

but that simple lack of meaningful names is detrimental.

Detrimental to whom, exactly? If I am developing something for fum, what do I care if a few people who merely object to naming don't use my software?

If I start up a GNOME session and want to use network meeting functionality, how is there any possible way that I could guess that "Ekiga" is the application I'm looking for?

The same way you know that your friend "Joe" is the guy with the dark hair, funny nose, and a good sense of humor. Have you ever asked your friend Joe to change his name to something a little more descriptive?

-matthew

Re:Program Naming

[Red Flayer]

If the product is good enough, it won't be a problem.

There have been thousands of products over the years that succeeded without a descriptive name and without an advertising budget. I would expect this to be even more possible considering the nature of the Linux community and the ease of communication.

Also, one other thought -- I know several CxOs who think that a descriptive name confers 'generic' (and therefore inferior) status on a product. It implies that you're copying a named product. Would you like Cheerios or Toasted Oat Rings for breakfast?

Re:Program Naming

[Dot.Com.CEO]

Regarding Konqueror, it's actually a great name. Consider this:

(Netscape) Navigator
(Microsoft) Explorer
(KDE) Konqueror

Re:Program Naming

[martinultima]

Hell, the Swiss Army Knife is probably the Konqueror of portable blades, if you know what I mean – Konqueror has just about everything except a kitchen sink. (And not to mention it's probably the only browser that can actually embed another browser – just pull up its built-in terminal emulator and run Lynx :-)

Anyway, getting back on topic – I'm honestly not sure how much of an argument there is here. Generic names like "Internet Explorer" actually tend to cause more confusion in the end – they start associating the blue "E" with the entire Internet, which can get annoying after a while if you know the difference... don't know about GNOME, but I know what KDE likes to do is to provide a generic name/description as well as the program name, so for example, just a couple examples that my own menu lists:

Firefox (Web browser)
The GIMP (Image Editor) ...and so on and so forth. Which I think is probably the best way to do it, that way they know what the program is the first time they run it, but if they need help later – or just want to tell their friends, or whatever – they'll know the specific program they like/need help with/etc. and not just a generic name that could potentially turn up thousands of results...

Anyway, just my 2 cents.

Re:Program Naming

[Cootey]

Its all good and well to have a philosophy of naming etc and as you quite rightly state these guys are doing the grunt work for nothing. But the material they produce would "probably" be much more widely used if it had more descriptive naming. Given that this isnt the case in most times in any OS. But if Linux is to be more widely used and seen as the "ducks nutts" for easy operatorability (is that a word !) then it would make it much easier to find a app if they were more intiuatively named. If you dont have to spend time trolling your menu lists or the net to find an app for what you want to do, especially if its already loaded, then you have more time to invest in actually using the app itself. Granted that in KDE (I dont use GNOME - its an asthetics thing ! ) menu lists and final apps are usually placed under the right headings. However this isnt always the case and in this instances your left wondering what the hell the app is for. Mind you I still kick them up to find out what the hell it does do. But not everyone could be bothered or interested in doing this.

Pretty face

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just a pretty face on top of gentoo.

You still have to emerge big time every week, wait days, then reconfigure all of your conf files to work with new versions. High maintenance!

Re:Pretty face

[corychristison]

You still have to emerge big time every week, wait days, then reconfigure all of your conf files to work with new versions. High maintenance!

# etc-update

Works very nicely. ;-)

Re:Pretty face

[Robstafarian]

Rubbish!

You don't have to emerge anything after installation, though you should stay on top of security alerts. You can easily leave your system alone, Portage just makes it easier to stay up to date in a more or less modular fashion. In other words, you don't have to wait six months and download five CD images to stay current from the bottom up.

I'd love to try it out

[Jestrzcap]

The question I will attempt to answer when I get home, is:
Does it allow me to use my WiFi on my laptop without having to do much tweaking. Currently there arent any livecd installers that allow me to browse using WPA while I install (im even having issues with knoppix)

Re:I'd love to try it out

[Steinfiend]

And on my not so modern Centrino laptop, my latest Ubuntu install took less than 45 minutes from boot to X up and running, and DVD/MP3 Playback, and Wireless access...

In fact thats how long it took on my ancient P3, and an even more ancient AMD laptop. Not that I'm anti Gentoo, its just I like to be able to use my computers during the same season that I start an install.

Proprietary drivers?

[byolinux]

This appears to come with proprietary drivers from ATI and Nvidia.. Can someone confirm or deny this?

Re:Proprietary drivers?

[lintux]

Since it's Gentoo-based it probably downloads the driver sources and then compiles it. The "installed in a few minutes" just means it can install a basic OS with a compiler and all the sources in a few minutes. After that it has to compile everything so that you can optimize it for your very unique machine so it'll be 0.5% faster than Ubuntu. :-)

However, of course this means that they can do this all without voiding any license.

Re:Proprietary drivers?

[Gothmolly]

Information doesn't want anything. YOU don't want to pay for it, hippy.

Sy... what? Sybian Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sybian Linux: the first female-user-centric distro.

We're sorry, that name is taken.

[pridkett]

Rule number 1 about naming a project -- do a google search. If something else that might be pretty related comes up pretty easily, you've picked a crappy name. In this case Sabayon is already used as the name for GNOME profile editor. It seems like this has been around much longer too.

Rule number 2 about naming a project -- when naming a project, try to get a domain name that reflects the project. I'm confused about how I would know from a URL like http://www.lxnaydesign.net/ that it would be about Sabayon linux.

Remember to play nice boys and girls. And for the Sabayon Linux folks, don't worry, Mozilla made the same mistake a few years ago. Clear up the confusion and move on -- it looks like you've got a pretty slick little distro going.

Indeed! Cases in point!

[brunes69]

Microsoft Excel - Obviously the name means that this software will let me excel at something. Maybe it will let me excel at *anything*?!?! My life just got simpler!

Microsoft Outlook - Hrm, sounds like this may be some soft of lighthouse control software. Either that, or maybe it will predict the future for me! Combined with Excel I will be unstoppable!

Apple QuickTime - Hrm, sounds like this let's me time-travel using my computer, my making time go faster. Or perhaps it is a timing program for when you are learning the quick step. Not sure yet....

Seriously - if you think Linux apps are the only ones with weird names, you're out to lunch. The problem is not *naming*, it is *branding*. Maybe when ou have a few million to invest in a linux application branding campaign you will donate it? No? didn't think so.

Also offers a live cd

[Jarlsberg]

For those who don't have a DVD-rom drive, here's the link to the cd version: http://www.lxnaydesign.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4 115#4115, torrent: http://www.lxnaydesign.net/gentoo/torrents/RR4-Lin ux-3.0.RC1-miniEdition.torrent

Bet this one gets crapped on like Kororaa did...

[advocate_one]

Kororaa had the 3-D drivers already there on the live disk and some fussbody got work on an improved live version stopped...

The main point I want to raise is that we do want to comply, honour and respect the GPL in relation to the Kororaa Project. Currently I am in limbo because no-one seems to be able to confirm the accusations made in the email.

If we are indeed in violation then on behalf of the Kororaa Project I sincerely apologise to the entire open source world, and will cease distribution of the Xgl Live CD immediately.

Is anyone out there able to shed some ground breaking light on this issue?

Although the Xgl Live CD has been halted, we are still working on the next official Kororaa release, 2006. Thank you all for your support.

Re:I'll made my own Linuzzzz distro. I'll call it.

[Lord Kano]

I'm waiting for "Proctologix", the distro to put a foot in Vista's ass.

LK