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PS: I work at home doing computer repair in Rochester, New York, here in the United States. I moved to my present home in 1998 and wanted to set up a web server via a cable modem. I wasn't happy with Windows as a solution, so I looked around and found Slackware Linux. Wow.

It was a bit of a learning curve, but as soon as I started playing I was hooked. I networked all of my Linux and Windows machines through it, shared the Internet connection, and cranked up an Apache server. With 'dynamic DNS' keeping an IP address via the cable modem, I had one web site that got up to 20,000 hits a day and the machine ran non-stop for 8 years. Except for rebooting after two power outages, the only maintenance was to scrape sawdust from the front grill of the old Dell server (dual Pentium Pros, kept in basement next to my table saw). Before Slackware that kind of power and reliability was unimaginable to me. And it was just plain fun.

PS: I modified Slackware to meet my needs early on. I wanted to install all-at-once without package selection and get an X desktop running before users had to learn anything (I was planning on reselling older machines with Linux on them). I wanted desktop-oriented software (as opposed to server stuff), with all menus and configurations for applications already set up, as well as a separate menu section filled just with documentation. It had to run fast, without the overhead of KDE or GNOME and with some tweaks to speed up the base system. In general, I wanted to keep the operating system out of the user's way.

The system is configured to use small GUI helper utilities for configuring stuff like creating a new user account with default permissions, changing the system font, setting the screen resolution, etc. All of this was designed to make newbies comfortable as well as to save 'experts' time, yet it had to retain the ability to modify systems the Slackware way via the same text-based configuration files.

I also included some programs that I wrote myself and which I could not find, such as 'htmlpage', Absolute's default HTML editor and 'WPClipper', part of the WPClipart package I made. Others include the quick volume control you can put in the taskbar without GNOME or KDE, same with the screen resolution setting utility. You can still edit xorg.conf to set your screen, but you'd have to find your monitor frequencies, generate a proper modeline from that and edit it properly, or have to dip into the console if you make a mistake. The screen utility just lets me pick a size, click OK and tests it for me.

Non-root users cannot make system changes, including software installation. Some folks don't like this, but having my kids come and tell me that something is not working every week (as they did with Windows) was aggravating. If you set up Absolute with everything the user will need, you can install and walk away until the hardware dies. This is a big plus for parents and IT guys. I take a lot of flack for this, but I've always believed that if you want to do something root should do, then log in as root and do it. That's what the root account is for.

I choose Slackware and made it as lightweight as possible so that Absolute could be installed on commodity hardware. Nothing is as fast and stable as Slackware Linux.

PS: For new users, yes. Having the kind of control Slackware lends the user has the price of needing to find out WHAT controls every little thing. And you really can't get much of anywhere without being comfortable using a text console and entering commands. You have to know where to look and how to extract the information you need, and this is certainly not intuitive to the new user.

On the other side of the coin, once you change something, some automated process doesn't come along and change it back on you. You don't have to fish through a dozen GUI dialogs (that can change from version to version) to alter a setting. You can fine-tune settings and permissions to a degree not possible in other environments. System overhead is low. And finally, once it is set up to taste, it just runs and runs and runs...

PS: Aside from being lightweight, Absolute has become quite simple to set up, use and maintain. I like to think it has all the advantages of Slackware, but with a whole lot to make using it easier. Parents and IT guys should like it because they can set it up and not have to fix it all the time. Programmers might like it because, like Slackware, all 'dev' sections of packages are left in the distribution. Also, most Absolute modifications and scripts for utilities are installed into /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/sbin and/or from the a/etc package, making it very simple for others to peruse and play with the changes I have made and maybe 'roll their own' version.
If they want to learn Slackware, Absolute makes a nice stepping-stone by taking some of the edge off of the learning curve.

For the future, I have no other desktop planned. I think that sometimes distributions try to be all things to all people, and there is a price to pay for that in complexity and overhead. I have no ambitions for Absolute to be the next Ubuntu. If someone would like Absolute with a different desktop, they are quite welcome to alter Absolute to their personal tastes and redistribute it under any name they choose and with my sincere blessing - that's the beauty of open source!

PS: Updating became a lot easier when Darren Austin of Slackware.org.uk graciously made a repository available to Absolute earlier this year. I can rsync updates very quickly and users can now use GSlapt (pre-installed and pre-configured) to update to the latest packages.

Software packages are compatible with Slackware packages of the same minor version (i.e. Slackware 12.2 -> Absolute 12.2). The only exceptions to this are the kernel packages, since they have been tweaked for performance and recompiled for Absolute, and the KDE libraries which are also altered for Absolute (used primarily to enable running K3b, which I simply cannot live without.) Although I should point out that users are free to replace the KDE libraries and substitute the Slackware version along with the rest of KDE. It just won't run as lean.

PS: Bit of a funny story there. I had used my Slackware modifications for several years before releasing it as a formal distribution. Since I considered what is now Absolute simply as a modification, I called it "Absolute Slackware". I thought it would be presumptuous to call it something completely different.

Well, I got an email from Patrick Volkerding about that. He said some of the guys in Slackware development had seen it announced and pointed out to him that naming it as such was infringing on the Slackware trademark. And, of course, would lead people to believe that it was something sanctioned by and/or developed by the Slackware team - which of course it was not. So it seems in my efforts not to come across as making more of Absolute than it was, I had given the wrong impression. The original name was, indeed, my bad.

Pat wrote to me but was casual about it when I said I'd change the name. He even turned out to be a bit chatty, telling me how, from reading my site, we were in sort of similar positions, working from the home and watching the kids... I let it go at that. I can talk shop all day but I'm just not very sociable over the Internet. I'd gladly welcome swapping info and ideas with the Slackware crew. Perhaps an article on DistroWatch will be the catalyst?

PS: Linux will certainly continue to grow. I see its biggest near-future growth in schools and businesses for two reasons: cost and control. As more IT guys become Linux-savvy, the benefits of lower or no cost-per-seat along with the ease of separating user and administrative permissions so cleanly makes Linux use a perfect fit for employees and students. And that's largely what I built Absolute for. I think Linux has to man-up to the school/business side of things before it will become really popular as a home desktop. I know that myself and my fellow long-haired hippie free software geeks tend to think freedom is the key to everything, but we also have to give IT guys in certain environments the ability to easily control the uses of their machines. Sometimes less is more.

Once folks get used to it at school and work, they'll be much more apt to use it at home.

Near-term for Absolute is the quest for developers. Absolute now has its own domain and FTP server, which also allows anonymous FTP upload to ftp.absolutelinux.org/incoming. Myself and fellow users want packages, suggestions and above all, feedback. I was able to make Absolute MUCH better after putting it online and getting input from users on the forum. I'm open to any and all suggestions. I like some things about Absolute very much, but I am not married to anything. Except my wife - glad I remembered that before I finished :-)

Absolute Linux 12.2 - the default desktop using IceWM
(full image size: 51kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)

DistroWatch Weekly

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DistroWatch Weekly

A weekly opinion column and a summary of events from the distribution world