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Yes, Gentoo has a graphical system installer, but it's still beta after years...

Part of the problem with the installer is that the goal is to preserve as much flexibility from the CLI method as possible. Anyone who's installed Gentoo before knows that this makes it the most ambitious graphical installer project ever attempted for Linux. I've never used it, but I've heard good things.

I don't care much about the Gentoo releases, because I don't even use the Gentoo install media. Why use a second-rate LiveCD if you don't have to? I typically install from an Ubuntu LiveCD or any random Linux install I happen to have on the system. I keep a copy of Tom's Root Boot on a floppy in case the machine won't boot from a CD (possibly because it doesn't have a CD-ROM drive). A serial cable is useful if there's no VGA adapter. That should cover all of your bases, although you might think about cross-compiling if the machine is cerca 1998 or older.

fdisk, mount, wget, tar, chroot, rsync, vi, emerge, vi, rc-update, make menuconfig, vi, emerge -e world && emerge -e world, etc-update, exit, umount, reboot... Easy as pie ;-)

fdisk, mount, wget, tar, chroot, rsync, vi, emerge, vi, rc-update, make menuconfig, vi, emerge -e world && emerge -e world, etc-update, exit, umount, reboot... Easy as pie ;-)

I'm not having pie at your house!!

You have to change your profiles too

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-upgrading.xml

(View available profiles)
# eselect profile list

(Select the number of your desired profile from the list)
# eselect profile set <number>

That's not even remotely true.

Updating your profile will typically not change a thing with the possible exception of you modifying /etc/make.conf to reflect changes in use flags. If use flags are unchanged in the profiles updating the profile will do nothing. And if it does something you won't have to compile much - unless you haven't updated in a while (e.g. many months not including the sparse security updates).

For me upgrading from 2006.1 to 2007.0-desktop made no difference except I could remove a few use flags in /etc/make.conf. Nothing needs to be recompiled.

You were being offensive for lying outright. You are either #1: Lying about gentoo because gentoo users know better than to recompile endlessly. That is something only morons do or #2 You really are a gentoo user but one of the ricers giving gentoo a bad reputation and having severe trouble figuring out how to use gentoo as a platform - therefore spreading lies.

One way or another you were obviously offensive. You can upgrade profile all you want - only in very special circumstances will it be beneficial to update - and often only a few packages.

For a pleasant surprise, try paludis: http://paludis.pioto.org/

Use catalyst to make your own install media.

You can't expect Debian devs to handle Unbuntu bugs. The same goes for Gentoo devs, with sparse time and resource they should focus their attention on what matters most and that is Gentoo Linux. The truth is that Sabayon by using many experimetal features, and insane default settings is placing a heavy burden on the Gentoo project. Moreover they have their own support system.

About the installer. as said before to match the flexibility of cli installation is a daunting task. Anaconda comes nowhere close. I've used the 2006.1 live cd installer to succesfully install Gentoo on a laptop without a hitch.

That's a cop out.

Except for the few differences Sabayon is Gentoo and refusing to help users just because of that is weak. I could understand if the question was strictly related to a Sabayon features, but anything else shouldn't matter.

Plus what is Gentoo's key feature? Flexibility? So isn't possible that a "real" Gentoo user could config his system to look and feel just like a default Sabayon installation?

(We're not talking any Sabayon specific features like the installer.)

Sure, but in that case the user knows excatley what I he did. And when problems arise he know how to deal with them. With Sabayon you get users that don't have a clue how their system is configured. You can't expect the Gentoo devs to babysit these people.

Except for the few differences Sabayon is Gentoo and refusing to help users just because of that is weak. I could understand if the question was strictly related to a Sabayon features, but anything else shouldn't matter.

I have to agree with the other poster. With Sabayon, you can't really ask a user what USE flag he used and what CFLAGS/CXXFLAGS he used? Does he/she know if the static linker used? What about prelink?

Most Sabayon user would not be able to tell Gentoo dev's what was used. Since Sabayon relies on binaries (they don't recommend installing ebuilds from Gentoo repositories), the problems usually boils down to the Sabayon flags and optimizations. Usually, with Gentoo, if the user has problems, the first thing he/she should try is to tone down the optimization flags and re-emerge. You can't really make a Sabayon user do that - because the problem could be from the package that doesn't run - or it could be that one of the underlying libraries is borked.

Sabayon is not gentoo. It uses technology from gentoo and is based on gentoo but has its own software base. It is no more gentoo than Arch Linux is LFS.

Sabayon and gentoo differs greatly from eachother despite using the same technology. And sabayon is not a gentoo project but merely uses gentoo has a starting point. It is no more gentoo than Win95 is Vista.

Yes, gentoo offers flexibility but at your own cost. Don't expect support if you are using anything but sane C(XX)FLAGS and sane Use Flags. Sabayon is not sane in that regard - and is not at all a gentoo project. You want support. Get it from the sabayon community. They know sabayon much better.

Good guide, the livecd installer failed for me every time I used it and had me yearning for the old way (non stage 3 way) of doing things and finding that guide was an excellent help.