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

[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

[eosp]

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

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

[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: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: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. ;-)

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.

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