[dot] KDE and Distributions: SabayonLinux

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1153960955/

From: Henrik Nordin <hnordin at gmail.com>
Dept: distros-named-after-puddings
Date: Wednesday 26/Jul/2006, @17:42

KDE and Distributions: SabayonLinux
===================================

   Sabayon Linux [http://www.lxnaydesign.net/] is quite a new addition
to the family of KDE distributions. It first came into existance on the
Gentoo Forums as RR4/RR64 and was designed to provide a fast and easy
way to get a Gentoo system with extras. After the inital success,
founder and developer Fabio Erculani decided to turn this project into a
fully fledged distribution. It was also decided that a new name was
needed and thus  SabayonLinux was born. Fabio Erculani talks about the
past, current status and the future of SabayonLinux.



                                  PAST


  I. CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE HISTORY OF YOUR DISTRIBUTION?

     Fabio: I want to start by saying that I am proud to be Italian,
even if, unfortunately, I don't speak much Italian with other
developers. Obviously, I am proud to use the best desktop environment of
the *nix world, too!

     By the way, as with most of my projects, this project was started
to satisfy my personal needs, it was the end of 2004, I was running some
Gentoo servers and I wanted to have a rescue live CD that supported a
lot more features than the official one. And that's it, called "Gentoo
Rescue Reiser4 LiveCD", sporting Reiser4 filesystem support, X.Org,
GNOME, KDE, NX (introduced later) and Project Utopia. Gentoo Forums, for
a lot of time were my home, until I started to work on a well designed
website, in mid-2005. I was nearly the first to build a graphical live
CD based on Gentoo and I was the #1 to build a live DVD too. Well, most
people currently know my work with the name of RR4 and RR64 Linux, an
installable live DVD with the most exciting applications and
technologies built into it. Along with them, there are its miniEdition
releases, featuring the same multimedia characteristics of their fathers
but fitting on a single CD and much more faster on memory constrained
systems. This was made possible, only thanks to the Gentoo GNU/Linux
Community and their efforts. Since some weeks, we have started to
migrate the website, the forums and even the distro artwork and name to
a new brand: SabayonLinux. So, if someone gets confused, this interview
should help ;)


 II. WHY DID YOU CHOOSE KDE AND WHICH VERSION OF KDE DID YOU FIRST
IMPLEMENT?

     Fabio: The first editions of Rescue Reiser4 LiveCD (abbreviated RR4
:P), were running GNOME. Not because KDE wasn't good, but because I had
never used KDE intensively even if it was always available on the CD.
Bored from too many critical bugs from GNOME, the "hard to manage
without gconf-editor" XML configuration files and the amazing work that
has been done for KDE 3.4, I started to work on KDE integration, and
that's the result: a nice and good looking desktop, nice killer
applications such as Amarok, Kaffeine, K3b, KNetworkManager.

     I am trying to bug as much as possible (read 24h/day :P) every KDE
developer to try to get some annoying bugs fixed, like the system:/
kioslave related ones.


III. HOW DID YOU FIND INITIAL SUPPORT FOR A NEW DISTRO?

     Fabio: I counted only on myself. I grab and even steal every good
idea from the users and try to implement that. I do not follow a timed
release schedule, because it's something stupid in my opinion, I prefer
to follow a feature release schedule. Working alone is quite hard, but
if you believe on what you are doing, you can do everything you want. An
example? Try to compare the latest RR4 release with any other KDE-based
distribution and keep in mind that I've always worked alone. The
results? Just let me know...


 IV. WHAT COULD KDE HAVE DONE BETTER TO HELP NEW DISTROS USE KDE?

     Fabio: Create a better comunication channel between KDE project and
us.


  V. WHAT WERE YOUR FIRST IMPRESSIONS ABOUT KDE'S DOCUMENTATION AND
COMMUNITY?

     Fabio: From the development side, KDE documentation is quite good,
from the user side, it can be improved without any large effort.



                                PRESENT


  I. HOW CLOSELY DO YOUR RELEASES DEPEND ON KDE RELEASES?

     Fabio: I tend to wait a little bit more if I know that a new bugfix
release is coming.


 II. DO YOU HAVE A CLEAR TARGET AUDIENCE FOR YOUR DISTRO?

     Fabio: Yes, the "just works" philosophy is a must for tired and
lazy Gentoo users :) And often, KDE just works.

     Do you have any user feedback mechanism?  If so, what feedback do
they have about KDE?

     Fabio: We use forums and mailing list for the development and I've
always seen that KDE feedback is not bad at all.


III. IN WHAT WAYS DO YOU CUSTOMISE THE VERSION OF KDE THAT SHIPS WITH
YOUR DISTRO?

     Fabio: I tend to use a standard Portage (aka the Gentoo package
manager) release but if I find something that needs to be fixed, I try
to fix it using websvn.kde.org and the diff utility :P


 IV. WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST STRENGTHS OF KDE FOR YOUR DISTRO?

     Fabio: Nice look and feel, nice localisation management, nice
integration and nice killer applications.


  V. WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST WEAKNESSES?

     Fabio: Not completely perfect Konqi's Javascript management (see
the Ebay image upload bug), broken system:/ or media:/ kioslave layout
for non-KDE apps and missing KDirWatch support (that I hope will be
fixed within two next minor releases), broken standard floppy management
using media:/ and some very old bugs that are still open, like the
"KMail and disk full bug". But I think that they will be completely
addressed for the KDE4 release.


 VI. WHAT KDE APPLICATIONS ARE THE MOST POPULAR AMONG YOUR USERS?

     Fabio: Amarok, we love it. And we hope that someday someone will
add iPod Video and even video functionality support. Merge Kaffeine (or
Codeine) with Amarok? Why not!


VII. DO YOU FEEL THAT YOU HAVE A GOOD RELATIONSHIP WITH THE KDE
COMMUNITY?

     Fabio: Yes, they're smart people! I love Aaron Seigo (and not only)
point of view. It's the users' point of view.



                                 FUTURE


  I. WHAT FEATURE WOULD YOU AS A DISTRO MAINTAINER LIKE TO SEE IN KDE?

     Fabio: NetworkManager integration. XGL/AIGLX support for Kwin and
remove the K-this - K-that names. I prefer latin names. KDVI, KFaxView,
KGhostView are bad. Digikam, Amarok, Plasma, Solid, etc... ARE GOOD!.


 II. IS THE EXTENDED 4.0 RELEASE CYCLE AN ISSUE FOR YOUR DISTRO?

     Fabio: Issue? Maybe... but if we'll have some more bugfix releases,
that's not a problem. You just need to fix the most annoying bugs.


III. WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO ABOUT THE 4.0 RELEASE?

     Fabio: Better networking and kioslaves management. Well... what's
the difference between /media and media:/ ? Or what's the difference
between /home/username and system:/home? For someone, only confusion,
but that's my personal point of view.


 IV. DO YOU PLAN ANY INVOLVEMENT IN THE BETA/RC RELEASES OF THE 4.0
RELEASE?

     Fabio: Yes, I want to bug and spam you if something does not work
properly :P


  V. ANY OTHER PLANS FOR YOUR DISTRO IN THE FUTURE?

     Fabio: Complete the "Sabayon" name migration, add Anaconda
installer thanks to the VLOS team, get some donations to buy and support
Mactel computers, work hard to make things just work (everything). Yes,
here in the Sabayon world, we need hens too, because without hens and
their eggs, we cannot prepare our favorite italian dessert: sabayon :P.
And yes, I am the farmer...