Sabayon followed the "out of the box" philosophy, aiming to give the user a wide number of applications ready to use and a self-configured operating system.

Sabayon Linux featured a rolling release cycle, its own software repository and a package management system called Entropy.

[9] A ServerBase edition was released which featured a server-optimized kernel and a small footprint, but this was later discontinued and integrated into the "Sabayon Minimal".

The adoption of Molecule[clarification needed] led the team to change the naming system for releases.

[11] Currently available versions are: Derivatives Additional X window managers could also be installed from the Sabayon repositories, such as Cinnamon and Razor-qt.

Because of the automatic driver configuration, the compositing window manager Compiz Fusion and KWin were used for the GNOME and KDE editions, respectively.

Portage downloaded source-code and compiled it specifically for the target system, whereas Entropy managed binary files from servers.

Entropy clients then pulled these tarballs and performed the various post- and pre-compilation calls of the Gentoo ebuild to set up a package correctly.

The Entropy software featured the ability of allowing users to help generate relevant content by voting and by attaching images, files and web links to a package.

[20] Although the distribution was a LiveDVD (or a LiveCD for LXDE, CoreCDX, SpinBase and ServerBase) it could be installed on a hard disk once the system was fully booted.

[22] Installation was designed to be simpler than is typical for Gentoo, which required more extensive knowledge of the operating system (particularly for the compilation of the Linux kernel).

This means a plethora of programs, audio and video codecs and the sexy Compiz 3D desktop effects.

It is also fully compatible with Gentoo, allowing the power users the ability to squeeze the absolute maximum of their operating system.Linux.com wrote a review about Sabayon 3.4, saying:[76] All the options take a relatively long time to boot – approximately three minutes on my system.

Sabayon loaded my Nvidia drivers, but neither Compiz Fusion or Metisse would work properly on my machines.

The professional quality graphics feature gray tones with royal blue accents and is very easy on the eyes.

This new theme reflects the maturity of the distribution and its developers.DistroWatch Weekly reviewed Sabayon Linux in 2009, stating:[78] The installer is simple and easy-to-use.

If memory serves, Sabayon adapted portions of Anaconda for their installer several version back and I thought it would be up to the job.

I think when most people click on an image file, they want to view it in a photo viewer, and not in a Photoshop-like application.