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Installing Sabayon Linux is much easier than installing Gentoo, because you don’t really have to tinker with command lines to do so.  Even when computer users who want to install Sabayon Linux onto brand new hard disk, they don’t really have to use the ugly Fdisk text script to create new partition table for their hard disk.  Wait, let backtrack a bit.  Why do a computer user who wants to install Sabayon Linux need to create brand new partition table for his or her brand new hard disk?  It’s because a brand new hard disk has no partition table to start with, and Sabayon Linux isn’t going to recognize a hard disk if it has no partition table.  So, without using the ugly Fdisk, what can a computer user use to create new partition table for brand new hard disk in Sabayon Linux?  Simple, when running Sabayon Linux in LiveCD environment, just use the command line emerge to install Gparted.  Like this, {emerge gparted}.  Once Gparted has been installed onto Sabayon LiveCD environment, you can use Gparted to create new partition table for your brand new hard disk.

Gparted is prettier and easier to use than Fdisk since it’s a graphical user interface with intuitive features, therefore it’s a welcome sight for new Linux users.  Hint:  once Gparted is installed onto LiveCD environment, it’s existed inside RAM only, because rebooting the LiveCD, you would reset LiveCD environment back to the default, out of the box settings again.  This action removes Gparted as if you had never installed Gparted, ever.

After you have created new partition table for your brand new hard disk, you only have to open up a terminal, become root, and then type in the command {installer} to fire up the installer manager’s graphical user interface.  At the installer’s graphical user interface, you just have to read the options it presents to you carefully and follow through the onscreen instruction within the installer manager to complete the installation process of Sabayon Linux.  As now, Sabayon Linux is at version number 8.  Once you had installed Sabayon Linux, make sure you remove the LiveCD and reboot your computer so you can boot into Grub and from Grub into Sabayon Linux.

Basically, using Sabayon Linux is pretty much similar to how you use Gentoo.  So, your first task is to make sure your Internet is working within Sabayon Linux.  Once the connection to the Internet has been established, you can begin the update process for Sabayon Linux.  How?

1. Open up a terminal, become root, and type in {emerge –sync}
2. When emerge –sync is done, type in {layman -S}
3. If the system asks you to do emerge portage, then you should do so. How?  Type in the command, {emerge portage} into terminal as root.

So, what on earth is emerge?  Well, emerge is sort of like Yum on Fedora, Yast on openSUSE, apt-get on Ubuntu, and so on.  Basically, emerge is based on Portage.  Portage is the real package manager behind the scene which allows emerge to call it to interact with source packages.  So, when you do the command emerge –sync, you’re actually telling emerge to update Portage package manager’s source archives/packages.  You can view emerge as command line tool which interacts with Portage (i.e., the package manager).

In my opinion, it seems Gentoo and Sabayon Linux rely on source packages and not binary packages, therefore installing software onto Gentoo or Sabayon Linux would be slower than doing the same thing on Ubuntu or Debian based Linux distributions.  Installing a source package usually requires the computer system to compile the source package first before the actual installation would begin.  Ubuntu or Debian based Linux distribution uses binary packages more often than source packages, therefore installing software on Ubuntu or Debian based Linux distribution is going to be faster as everything had already been defined.  Nonetheless, I think installing from source packages does have an advantage over binary packages, because installing source packages would only define the necessary features and variables and elements of a software that fit a specific computer environment.  This way the installed software might perform better and be more stable than otherwise.

So how do you go about installing software on Sabayon Linux (i.e., same for Gentoo)?  You do the following.

1. Let say you want to install ClamAV onto Sabayon Linux, you would open up a terminal.
2. Become root!
3. Type in the command {emerge clamav}.

Let say now you want to remove ClamAV from your Sabayon Linux system, but how?  You do the following.

1. Open up a terminal!
2. Become root!
3. Type in the command {emerge -c clamav}

In summary, using Sabayon Linux is very similar to how you would use Gentoo.  Obviously, if you never have played with Gentoo before, you might want to try Sabayon Linux out first since installing Sabayon Linux is easier than installing Gentoo.  Remember, it’s not that straight forward when you try to install Sabayon Linux onto a brand new hard disk, because you have to go through the process of creating a brand new partition table for your brand new hard disk.  VirtualBox users should go through the same process as users who want to install Sabayon Linux onto brand new hard disk, because VirtualBox users would have a brand new virtual hard disk when they create a brand new virtual machine.  When done installing Sabayon Linux, you should learn how to use emerge command lines to update Portage package manager, install source packages, and remove source packages.  Other than these necessary command lines and procedures, users should be able to use Sabayon Linux with ease since most things are accessible through graphical user interfaces.