Well its time to do what seems like my annual Linux installfest where I get a new machine and decide which is the best Linux distro to see me through the next year.

I blew away my Ubuntu-themed Gentoo machine and installed Backtrack. That didn't work out because of slackware. So I needed an alternative. My distro had to meet the following criteria:

• Solid package management with the ability to automatically resolve and install dependencies
• Up to date package tree (i.e. not Debian)
• Package tree which contains the majority of the pen test tools I use
• An installer! (preferably GUI)
• Preferably Gentoo based (not essential but it would be nice)
  

So that left meant Debian based distros were out for points 2 & 3, Fedora was a contender but the choice came down to:

• Sabayon - by far the sweetest friggin eye candy Linux has seen to date
• VLOS - It met all the criteria. Working Gentoo install with minimum fuss
• Gentoo - Build it by hand and configure it up how I like (again)

Sabayon 3.3 just blew me away. I love it. It is so functional AND beautiful. But all beauty has its flaws... Sabayon the testing package tree from Gentoo. This leads to massive problems upgrading packages. I have persisted with this because its so nice, but the jury is still out.

VLOS (formerly Vida Linux) is great, Anaconda installer, some basic binary packages (OpenOffice, Firefox) to get you going quickly. I really like this distro and will use it for all my future Gentoo only installs, but it lacked the polish of Sabayon.

Gentoo by hand... only for servers. Not doing it again for Desktop, I use VLOS if Sabayon doesn't pan out. I'm tired of long winded manual installs and configuring a million text config files by hand (especially X).