Sabayon 9 is the latest release of Sabayon, a multi-purpose Linux distribution derived from Gentoo Linux. Made available for download are 32- and 64-bit installation ISO images for KDE, GNOME 3 and Xfce desktop environments.

Sabayon is a rolling-release distribution, so existing users do not have to reinstall to get the latest core and applications of a Sabayon release. That is one of the best features of the distribution.

This article features a few scree shots from test installations of the KDE and GNOME 3 editions. A detailed review should be published by the end of the week. The first four screen shots are from the GNOME 3 edition.

This shows the activities view of the (GNOME 3) desktop. The GNOME 3 edition comes as a standard installation of GNOME 3, which means it comes in a format that many users do not like.
Sabayon 9 GNOME Activities

Searching for applications.
Sabayon 9 GNOME Search

You can tell from this that Firefox is not installed. Chromium is the installed Web browser.
Sabayon 9 GNOME Searching

Still searching.
Sabayon 9 GNOME Search Games

The default KDE desktop.
Sabayon 9 KDE Desktop

The same desktop as above, showing the date widget.
Sabayon 9 KDE Date Widget

The Kickoff menu is the default on Sabayon 9.
Sabayon 9 KDE Kickoff Menu

Rigo is the name of the new graphical package manager on Sabayon 9. It replaces Sulfur.
Sabayon 9 KDE Rigo

Rigo is fast and has a clean interface, but it is too “clean” for me. A package manager should at least have a listing of applications by category. That does not seem to be a feature of Rigo. More on what when the review is published. Want to see what the new Sabayon looks yourself? You may download an installation image from here.
Sabayon 9 KDE Rigo Apps