Why should I switch from Ubuntu to Sabayon Linux?

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Ubuntu is getting faster and more stable with every release. Sure, it could be lighter, but not everyone wants to run command-line Arch. Anyways, if you're obsessive about performance, ubuntu-minimal plus the wm of your choice (or choice your wm added onto a regular Ubuntu) gets great performance, and isn't much different from Debian aside from being more up-to-date and being a bit easier to set up.

Why all the hating on Ubuntu from some Linux users? There are plenty of experienced users who like Ubuntu, it's not just a n00b distro. It's just Debian Sid with bug fixes, optional support for some proprietary stuff, and easier graphical configuration. I don't understand the antipathy from fans of other distros. Is it jealousy at Ubuntu's success? Is it bitterness that newcomers now have a functioning GNU/Linux system out of the box without all the work and struggle older users went through? Is it just plain elitism?

And if you're going to whine about anything being bloated... look at OpenSUSE. Or any distro that uses KDE. The desktop environment is going to make a much bigger difference than the distro.

you seem quite obsessive...
Who's "hating?" It seems you're "hating" on people that don't use ubuntu. I'm sure there are. Maybe you should check out Mepis 8. And??? I don't get you ubuntu fan boys. You all get all snotty when someone suggest another distro. Why is that? Still don't get you ubuntu fan boys... blah blah blah... someone suggested another distro and said ubuntu is buggy and bloated... blah blah blah... I don't think Ubuntu falls under GNU. Mepis 8 works out of the box, but you wouldn't know that, would you? Of course not. You're too busy crying & whining because someone dared to suggest a different distro than ubuntu. LOLZ
I don't use OpenSuse because it's just as annoying as ubuntu. What's wrong with KDE 3.5x?

I've tried several distros other than Ubuntu. Aside from every Ubuntu variant (xubuntu, kubuntu, etc), I've used OpenSUSE, Debian, Sabayon, and VectorLinux. I always end up coming back to Ubuntu because it's easily the best distro I've tried so far. I'm not an Ubuntu fanboy, actually right now I'm considering switching to Fedora. I just think it's odd that a lot of Linux users bash on Ubuntu as being bloated, buggy, unstable, etc when it really is a very high-quality distro. I think it's largely just that it has a reputation as being for n00bs, and hard-core alpha-geek wannabes try to stigmatize that.

As far as Mepis... well, thanks for the recommendation, I might try it out. I don't like that it is based on KDE, since I really dislike KDE (which just plain sucks) but I'll probably give it a chance over the summer.

Ubuntu's not GNU? They have more of a free software focus than a lot of other distros. And Canonical does better than Ututo and GNewSense because they give the choice to the user, rather than imposing Stallman's will on everyone. My wifi needs a proprietary driver or I simply can not connect to the Internet, and Ubuntu gives me the option to use it if I choose. Gnash still sucks, so I'm going to use the propriety Flash. Pure Stallman-fanatic "FREE Software" doesn't give a functional system for what an actual user needs to do.

EDIT: Mepis sure does try to hide their free downloads. I'm not averse to paying for a good product, but I don't want to start shelling out money when I'm just distro testing and am not extremely likely to stick with that distro permanently. I did find a free download mirror eventually, and an installation CD will be ready shortly. Since I plan on redoing my partition scheme tomorrow for Windows 7 RC, I'll throw Mepis on there and see if it works out of the box. A few hiccups aren't a disqualifying factor (Fuzzy certainly remembers the fun of my first Ubuntu install) but the previous two releases of Ubuntu have set my standards extremely high.

I'll give it a try, I havent yet. KDE 3.5 is no selling point though, as I have never been fond of it.

The original topic was started to foster discussion on why someone should choose one distro over another. I think its a topic that isnt broached enough, other than people proclaiming that all distros but their own suck. It was less about my dissatisfaction with Ubuntu.

From my experiences of a variety of distros, once a distro is installed and operational, there is very little difference between them. Maybe that speaks of a problem in the Linux community. If Linux is going a different way from windows and OS X, then someone in linux should be striking off from the rest of us.

I guess I like the new and unknown.

Where are the astronauts of linux?

Two items of note:

A friend is trying out ubuntu. He asked for the download page, so i grabbed it, and because I checked it first I saw that it did indeed lead to instructions on installing and what version to try. Shortly after I remembered that I was to try mepis 8. Contrary to Orwells experience, google quickly responded to mepis 8 download, giving me a url.

But... if I were a newbie, that url was singularly unhelpful. it led to an index of versions.. also unhelpful. Shouldnt they help people install?

Anyway. 30% done. I will take it with me on my trip and try it out.

Yes, mepis 8 download gets it in Google, but my first instinct was to go directly to the Mepis homepage, from which they attempt to sell downloads.

Burned mepis 8 to cd. booted. No clarity anywhere as to if it were a liveCD or if it would attempt to install.

Confident that I could prevent an install before it was to late I progressed. I determined that it is indeed a sort of liveCD when it stopped at a log in screen. I have the option of logging in as user "demo" or "root". unfortunately, nothing along my journey has suggested any sort of password. Leaving the field blank and trying 'guest' have no effect. I am stymied, and If I didnt have alternate access to the internet, I would be rebooting away from mepis just to find one. If I wasnt experienced and determined, would I go back?

I think I will post this on their forums.

KDE 3.5x beats KDE 4.2
If you don't like KDE 3.5x, then don't use it. You can always install gnome. or Or you could get it from the package manager. I prefer aptitude over apt-get, and hardly ever use synaptic, just my preference though . Anyways, after doing that, you'll have a fairly basic gnome setup. Meaning, it doesn't come with all that extra junk. You can simulate the install to see what will be downloaded and installed by typing Then after you downloaded it, you can install whatever apps you prefer. Don't forget to remove KDE if you don't want it or you can just keep there to play with.

I'm just assuming you prefer gnome over KDE and there's nothing wrong with that. Just your preference. Or maybe you prefer something else like, Xfce, ROX, Lxde, Openbox and Fluxbox, EDE... etc. There's too many of them for me to recall. Sometimes I load up into KDE 3.5/Openbox. It just uses Openbox as the window manager.

I choose Debian because it's not as buggy and bloated as ubuntu. It seems to me, ubuntu has been getting more bloated with each release since Hardy Hellron. Your Ubuntu Fan Boy pal seems not to like it when someone gives their opinion that, ubuntu is buggy and bloated.

I personally don't use Mepis 8. I have used it, but I was just suggesting it, and that seems to be a big no-no to Ubuntu fan Boy .

http://www.mepis.org That site was hard for you to find where to download the system? You just click on download MEPIS and scroll down. Pretty simple

On Mepis main page there is the User Manual link and a help link off to the left. It's about as easy as Ubuntu site to find that stuff, if not more easy. Actually easier, don't have to click as many links. Also, on the live cd, there is a pretty good user manual on how to install and use mepis. You might wanna give your friend some pointers on how to navigate a webpage

Ubuntu does the same exact thing Mepis does. Ubuntu tries to get you to buy the cd. Navigating Mepis website is pretty straight forward, click download Mepis off to the left and scroll down. Less clciking involved then ubuntu website.

I don't get you Ubuntu Fan boy Orwell. Seriously, I don't. You get all pissy when someone suggest another system. Why? Seriously, I am curious as to why? You're complaining about dumb stuff. I mean, you're complaining that Mepis website tries to get you to buy the CD. Ubuntu does the same exact thing you're complaining about. You complain about how *hard* it was for you to navigate a site, that is as simple as Ubuntu site, if not more simple. It like you're going out of your way to find something to whine about.

And I thought the Arch guys were annoying. Man Orwell, you've topped them, I'd say.

Mepis seems fairly straightforward to me, but your points about its friendliness to newbies are interesting. I can well remember when I wouldn't even have known what "livecd" meant- Ubuntu's "Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer" was helpful in that regard, and also assuaged my fears of damaging my system. The easy download links with explanations of which ones meant what was also good- Debian I remember just links to a couple dozen isos without necessarily mentioning that you only need one of them, or pointing to which one you might want.

Still, I doubt Mepis is any harder than Ubuntu once you have a basic level of Linux competency. I checked through their documentation for hardware compatibility, and while they lack Ubuntu's wiki dedicated specifically to my exact laptop, their Ndiswrapper documentation is clear and well-written, moreso than Ubuntu's was back when it was necessary.

Um... I downloaded Mepis, as per your suggestion, and was planning on installing it over my current Ubuntu partition in the next couple days.


Really? Ubuntu offers to ship free CDs out. Yes, I know Mepis does the same, but Ubuntu does not push for donations nearly as hard and makes the free CD order much more prominent on their site.


The answer is that you're delusional- I don't get upset when people suggest other distros. I'm almost always looking for a new distro to try myself. Actually, I'm currently planning a full repartition of my hard drive to get the Windows 7 RC and Mepis on there. I'll give Mepis a shot, but if it doesn't have anything particularly great Fedora comes next. Then quite likely back to Ubuntu, unless either Mepis or Fedora gives me a reason to stick with them. What annoys me is the elitism and banging on about how crappy Ubuntu is when it is in fact a very good distro. You're just repeating hype- how is Ubuntu bloated and buggy? It's quite stable for me (except when I do stupid stuff to break it) and the performance on my hardware is quite good, all the more so if I choose a lighter UI.

And KDE 3.5 is the old version, it won't be supported forever. KDE fans will eventually have to move to the garbage that is KDE4 or find a new DE. Of course GNOME is always an option to install later, but that doesn't change Mepis being a KDE-centric distro. I'd rather not have to fight a distro over which GUI I want to use.

Mepis, being a derivative of Debian seems no more expensive than Ubuntu: its free, though they ask for 5 dollars, the indication is well phrased. There are paid versions, but its unclear what they offer.

Interestingly enough, Mepis was a derivative of ubuntu until 2006, when they swapped to debian.

The creator also has some sort of beef with GPL, though I didnt look for specifics. How he lets a personal problem affect his distro is invisible to me.. I just want something usable without breaking laws.

Gustav, if you dont use Mepis 8, why did you recommend it to me? As per the topic, how does it stand out from its sibling Ubuntu or its parent Debian? I'm assuming you didnt pull it out of your hat: there must be something you like about it that caused you to recommend.

My personal history with linux is as follows. I was looking for adventure in computing. I was an xp user and decided to try linux. I had 1/2 hour of exposure to linux in the 90s, though I had forgotten about it till later.

Hitting the search engines for clues on where to start, Ubuntu was lauded as the easiest. I downloaded Ubuntu 6.10, and attempted to install it. I was not successful, as I burned to dvd and attempted to boot from a cd rom equiped machine. I was a little clueless...

Having had no success I waited a bit. This was early during my time at WP and might remain in the oldest threads. lau and a few others took me under their wing. Ubuntu 7.04 came out and I successfully installed it, after making the dvd/cd mistake again. impatience caued me to install to THIS machine. This unfortunately buggered up windows xp. Luckily I still had xp on my test machine. Fixing the install worked.

I for one never needed the command line, and it was some months until I did.

I still remember the sense of mystery of logging into a completely new experience. It was like being the first man on mars. I was confident in my abilites, well equiped, but no clue what to do first. It was an awesome feeling.

Since I had read about many distros I then tried knoppix, mandriva, debian, mint, openSUSE, puppy linux, DSL, fedora core, and a couple others. openSuse with its green colors and lizard was very attractive, but failed to entice me with any features that I couldnt find in the others. In fact, none of them had anything to offer that wasnt already in Ubuntu.

Seeing how I liked Ubuntu's philosophy, I stuck with that, But I am always looking for something new to try. I guess I am looking for that alien feeling again.


More recently I have tried things like CrunchBang, Gnusense, Mepis, Backtrack...

So whats new under the sun?

Because I'm a elitist and that's what elitist do I used Mepis 8 for about a week. I suggested it because some people don't want to install Debian Lenny for various reasons. It uses Debian Lenny and you don't have to sit there and dick around with it. It's newbie friendly and is known to be newbie friendly. Just thought you would like to try something a little bit different then ubuntu. You don't really even need to use the comman line, if you don't want to.

I'm not sitting here suggesting or trying to convince you to use Gentoo, Slackware,or Arch. I know you probably don't want to sit around trying to set up those systems.


What made you try Backtrack?

I found the perfect linux system for you. It's even based on ubuntu. It should be extra easy for you to use. It's perfect. http://www.qimo4kids.com/ They ask for Donations on their website though. Just thought i'd warn you because apparently only Ubuntu can ask for Donations and other distros can't.

Now you're just being infantile. I run Debian on my desktop system, and I started that from a command-line-only install because I wanted a light system for old, crappy hardware. My laptop runs Ubuntu simply because it's the best distro I've tried so far. I intend to continue distro hopping, but for now I know what Ubuntu's little eccentricities are, and I don't have as good an idea what little hiccups other distros will have. Where Ubuntu has flaws, I've found some decent workarounds. To use another distro I'd have to learn a whole new set of workarounds for that distro's problems, and I'd have to learn new ways of doing things. What would the end benefit be, when Ubuntu and Mepis are both Debian knock-offs with a focus on ease of use? I like tweaking, so I'll go ahead and distro-hop a bit, but what can I realistically expect to find in Mepis that isn't in Ubuntu?

Incidentally, you ragged on Ubuntu earlier for apparently not falling under GNU, despite it having a stronger focus on free software than I've seen in many other distros. (Sabayon and VectorLinux both install multiple proprietary applications by default) Looking at the Mepis "Legal" page, I have a lot of doubts about their commitment to open source. What's the deal there? I begin to think that you, for whatever reason, have some problem with Ubuntu and are just recommending anything that's not Ubuntu.

[quote="Orwell"]Incidentally, you ragged on Ubuntu earlier for apparently not falling under GNU/quote]
Huh, I never "ragged" on ubuntu for not falling under GNU. Saying I don't think Ubuntu falls under GNU is not ragging on anything. You're quite strange. I've never ran into a person like you in any forum. I did think it was funny when you started complaining that Mepis asked for donations and that they don't mail out free cd's. You must think all these developers are millionaires

But seriously, you should try out Qimo.

Whatever, I don't feel like arguing with you anymore.

What does Mepis have that Ubuntu doesn't? What is the advantage of using Mepis?

you're the one arguing about something.

weirdo