Sabayon Linux 6.0 released -- without GNOME 3.0

By Eric Brown
2011-06-27

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The Sabayon community released version 6.0 of its Gentoo-based Linux distribution, moving up to Linux 2.6.39.1, but opting for GNOME 2.32.2 and KDE 4.6.4 desktop environments instead of the controversial GNOME 3.0. Sabayon 6.0 adds support for the Btrfs filesystem, switches to LibreOffice 3.3.3, and updates to version 1.0 of its Entropy package manager.

The Italy-based Sabayon community -- whose name refers to a light, airy, custard-like dessert -- released Sabayon 5.0 in October 2009. Like the Linux Mint project with the recent Linux Mint 11, Sabayon has chosen to ship with GNOME 2.32.2 instead of the radically new, bleeding edge GNOME 3.0 release. As usual KDE is also available, in this case boosted to version 4.6.4.

Sabayon Linux 6.0
(Click to enlarge)

In his announcement, longtime Sabayon project leader Fabio Erculiani explained the GNOME decision this way: "Because we do care about our community, we do listen to our users, we consider them part of the game, we decided to leave GNOME3 out for another, last, release cycle, in order let things to settle down: providing a broken user experience has never been in our plans."

Sabayon 6.0 is built on the latest Linux kernel 2.6.39.1 -- the last stop before this summer's Linux 3.0. The distro is also touted for its "blazing fast, yet reliable, boot." Sabayon 6.0 continues to support server-oriented customers with "extra Server-optimized, OpenVZ-enabled, Vserver-enabled kernels in repositories," writes Erculiani. There's also a kernel-switcher tool that purports to make it easier to switch between Sabayon Linux kernels.

The Entropy package manager has moved up to version 1.0_rc10, "bringing outstanding speed and reliability," writes Erculiani. The Entropy Store (Sulfur) has been speeded up, and an Entropy Web Services foundation library has been introduced to better support user generated content contributions, he adds. Other Entropy enhancements are said to include adding support to delta and parallel packages downloads, as well as a differential repository update via HTTPS.

One of the biggest changes under the hood is the distro's new native support for the Btrfs filesystem. Btrfs is said by supporters to offer better fault tolerance and easier administration than the Ext file-systems, among other virtues.

Sabayon 6.0 updates X.Org Server to version 1.10, GRUB to version 1.99, GCC to 4.5.2, and Python to 2.7, says the project. IcedTea6 is said to be the newly featured Java VM (virtual machine), and the project has also added a non-intrusive firewall tool called "ufw."

Sabayon 6.0, showing system tools options
Source: Softpedia
(Click to enlarge)

Externally, users will see reworked artwork and a new boot music intro, while some will notice the improved theming for 16:9 and 16:10 widescreen monitors. Always touted for its fast installation process, Sabayon 6.0 enhances the Installer for systems marked by crypt, LVM, and swRAID environments.

Like just about every other recent Linux distro release, Sabayon 6.0 opts for LibreOffice over the now Apache-controlled OpenOffice.org, dropping in the 3.3.3 release of the forked productivity package. Sabayon also switches to Chromium/WebKit as the bundled web browser. Sabayon continues to stand out as a home theater OS with its inclusion of the media-centric XBMC software, which also forms the basis for Boxee.

Availability

The open source Sabayon Linux 6.0 is available now. The release announcement, with additional details, systems requirements, and links to downloads, may be found on this Sabayon Linux 6.0 page. Donations are said to be exceedingly welcome.

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