I think the review is good, and absolute linux has own style, speed and simple

to @wheresthe colour: it’s not the point. Can you read the review clearly, what the desktop manager the distro used, and how the performance compare the price hardware that being used. And not all people like flashy color thing like you and your precious window do.

Wheresthecolour!? Your kidding? You really,really need to get out of the “Windows Closet”. Be truly free to choose something different. And color it the way you like it. Communist Style distro! I suggest reading the book “Fahrenheit 451″. Then revisit your note. I’m doing you a favor here. You do not have to be in the MS+Hardware shackles forever. Green

Wow,

Where to start..Absolutes builder is a coding machine. He codes more before breakfast than most will in a life. If he wants it to look plain..more power to him. I don’t find it unattractive. If you want flashy go look around..Linux does flashy too. As far as software functionality goes, it’s easy to make things work when you have a lock on people and hardware markets like Micro$oft…

Keep paying Uncle Bill..He likes you too :) sheeeess..

why are Linux distro’s so crap looking compared to Windows XP, Vista, & now 7

Linux is supposed to have a community of hundreds of thousands of expert programmers,..and Absolute Linux looks like its something from the days of Windows 3.11,.
drab, dreary,..colourless,..mostly drab grey & shades of grey,..thats all Linux programmers produce.
Software that doesn’t work,..no real plug & play,..drabness abounds
Linux is the ideal Communist style distro,..drab and dreary

From what I remember of my Absolute 12.x install is that what you get is a more or less a basic system. Any frippery or apps you want, you have to download and install manually. Sometimes that may mean re-compiling. From what I’ve read, the improvements you are looking for will not be forthcoming from the developer. The AL community prides itself on the fact that AL is a bare bones distro which can be tailored to each users exact needs. Unfortunately that takes experience with Linux.

I would have to agree with Masinick that Absolute is a pretty easy install, especially compared to full blown Slackware. Of course I have not really messed with Slackware since version 6 or so. I bought the 6 CD set years ago off the $9.99 bargain rack at Fry’s.

As to the text installer, I for one have no problem with these. Sort of makes me nostalgic for the old DOS days. They also tend to perform a bit faster than graphical ones.

Speed is also an advantage of plain looking desktops, but I do agree a better color selection might be in order here. I do know IceWM is capable of better. Still, if that’s all the author required, more power to him.

OK, I installed Absolute Linux onto Virtualbox OSE to specifically try out the 13.0.2 release. I also have the absolute-13.0.rc1.iso as well as the absolute-13.0.2.iso image, so I know that I have tried this out fairly recently.

Now knowing the tricks of how to actually INSTALL, as opposed to running Live or in memory a Virtual instance – it does seem to help to set up a fixed space – installing in an expanding dynamic virtual space seems to take a long time, but it does work. Only the other day I installed Zenwalk 6.2. It’s overall performance was pretty comparable to what I experienced physically installing Absolute Linux 13.0.2 onto Virtualbox OSE. Both install pretty slowly, but run well once installed.

There IS a way to get the Multimedia codecs, Jim, they just are not all installed initially. IF you look at the First Run Info, you will see that there are ways to add additional multimedia codecs, which would probably get the Superman stuff going with libdvdcss2, but Paul says it may take 1/2 hour or so to download, compile, and build.

Absolute Linux 13.0.2 also comes with both the Firefox 3.5.3 and Midori Web browsers. I know that Paul was talking about making Midori the default, but he was soliciting feedback on that and apparently he got the feedback to keep Firefox around. He seems to have Firefox, Midori, and Opera available, three good choices.

I found Absolute Linux to be a snap to install. My thoughts on root proved to be true – Paul confesses to being primarily a root user because he is a software developer and integrator, but he recommends immediately creating user accounts, and neatly describes how to do so in his very good First Run Info guide. He’s written some nice small Python scripts to simplify some of those tasks and he has written a nice guide, not too much info, just enough to do the key things that you are likely to need to do.

All in all, I am sticking with my previous impressions, namely that Absolute Linux is not a broad, general purpose system, but a basic, preconfigured system designed to quickly install, easily configure, and it operates well with modest hardware requirements. It is not fancy at all; it looks like a system built in 2001 or 2002, but it also runs like a system built in that timeframe, that is, it works on old hardware from that day and runs fast on hardware from our current era. All in all, I think it is worth having around, at least for those who like to tinker with more than one system on their hardware.

Brian thanks so much for the background on AL, that’s very helpful information to know.

I do have the ISO image for 13.0.2 downloaded; I will fire it up and see how well it runs in my Virtual environment.

Hi Jim, I think your review is fair. I would like to comment, though, on the nature of Absolute Linux versus Slackware, which may explain some of the reasons that Absolute is the way that it is.

First of all, Slackware is really flexible. Absolute Linux is not trying to replace Slackware at all, it is attempting to carve a relatively small niche; one, a personal tool for the developer (I believe his name is Paul Sherman, correct me if I have that wrong). He initially created Absolute Linux, just as many others do, by creating tools to build a system that meets his own needs, then he sought to build a small market for others who are interested in similar needs and markets.

I believe that one place he envisioned Absolute Linux is to make it available to families and students, with the following assumptions: 1. There would be at least one somewhat experienced individual, who would be responsible for installing the software, creating accounts, and setting up the environment. 2. Those who were the other consumers of the system would generally be discouraged from messing with it; therefore the division was that the root user would have all of the capabilities, and non-experienced people would have no way to update the system; they’d have to have access to the root account. He figured that would keep the system reasonably under control.

Concerning the artwork, Paul is apparently not much of an artist, and I think he was looking for something that would not be flashy, but quite fast and simple for an experienced administrator to set up (it is easy in that context), with not a lot of options or flexibility to do much with it.

I think he is flexible on what gets implemented; I suspect he’d be open to hearing suggestions. When it comes to artwork and stuff like that, an artist would have to contribute to his community for us to see anything happening there.

I’ve used several releases of Absolute Linux in the past, though I have not yet tried out this particular update. Past releases have always been light, fast, responsive, and generally of good quality. They have not been pretty or cute; we can go to Hannah Montana if we want cute or Mandriva if we want attractive.

I think Paul hits his market pretty well. It is a rather limited market with specific goals and intentions, but at least he accomplishes what he wants to do within the limited boundaries of his one person capability.

In the past, when he’s built something, one very good thing to say is that if there is something wrong with it, he is very quick to correct it and come up with an update. That’s good because I do not think even with the gslapt-get facility, this release does well with updates. You’re better off just installing a new version every so often and keep your private data on its own data partition. That is a pretty limiting use case, but within that use case, this system does at least perform well, it is quick to set up and it does exactly what it is intended to do.

Interest wise, it’s not that interesting. Performance and capability wise, it is in the top tenth in performance and in the top half in capabilities.