News

• Absolute 13.0.9 released
    Saturday, 02/06/2010:
  
  k3b (kde3 version) reinstated
  
  Deps for this along wioth additional user-submitted theme included. Just got tired of problematic CD burning, deciding, finally, that enough was enough. We'll use something that works.




• Absolute 13.0.8 released
    Tuesday, 02/02/2010:
  
  Multimedia Installer fix
  
  Only a few packages changed, but the multimedia installer was not properly updated and this could lead to some confusion and lack of functionality for users who chose to install the media enhancements.




• Absolute 13.0.7 released
    Sunday, 01/31/2010:
  
  Kernel bump
  
  Lots of updates to sync with Slackware-current and some multimedia scripts updated to keep pace with new kernel device nomeclature. Turned out a lot less painful than expected... Brasero (CD Burning) is back. DVDStyler added. Aside from kernel a lot of multimedia capabilities were updated and tweaked.




• Absolute 13.0.5 released
    Saturday, 12/19/2009:
  
  Monthly minor release cycle?
  Primarily security updates (kernel, GIMP, Firefox, bind, etc.)
  
  Also removed Brasero (CD Burning) as it is too dependent upon Gnome and switched to simpler xfburn. Has a few xfce-related dependencies but these are small and also allow easier development for users if they want to use the libraries. You may also notice that wxGTK libraries are in the base install, used by the the chm help viewer and also support Audacity, now compiled and sitting on CD2 in the multimedia folder.




• Absolute 13.0.4 released
    Wednesday, 11/18/2009:
  
  Several security updates, updated libs and beginnnings of internationalizing the custom scripts and apps that are part of Absolute (thanks to GALPon MiniNo Developers Team.) In addition a new utility to change language/keymap from a GUI utility.
  
  Avidemux now in base install, epdfview replaces xpdf, AbiWord now comes with collaboration plugin with proper support to create online accounts.




• Absolute 13.0.3 released
    Sunday, 10/18/2009:
  
  New Perl, new PIM/calendar:
  
  and some additional interface scripting/tweaking.
  
  This is the nice, peaceful, usabillity-improving portion of development. Really very pleasant. Good time for other developers to hop in?




• Absolute 13.0.2 released
    Thursday, 09/24/2009:
  
  Gtk themes in, K3B and KDE libs out:
  
  Brasero has replaced K3B and kdelibs, kdemultimedia and arts have all been removed. Gtk themes have been implimented and are changeable via customized gtk-chtheme utility. While we are staying away from the heavy integrated environments, we can still get our lightweight apps to look good and coordinate with each other... changing Gtk theme also changes icewm theme, desktop background (in pcmanfm) and window background for ROX-Filer.
  
  So far there are themes of clearlooks, warm, gray and black. Any contribs most welcome. For background info, check out the /usr/local/bin/settheme script. It is called from gtk-chtheme and the script lets you know exactly what files are being used.




• Absolute 13.0.1 released
  Saturday, 09/12/2009:
  
  Bug fix release corrects two issues:
  
  Add user utility corrected (had failed to start due to importing module that is no longer used.)
  
  New auto-start daemon (for audio CDs, movie DVDs and PTP cameras) installed to replace non-working ivman. New app is halevt. New user/group needs changed to accommodate this daemon as well as icewm startup changed, and gdm updated to kill daemon between graphical logins (.bash_logout if not.)




• Absolute 13.0 released
  Thursday, 09/10/2009:
  
  Kernel tweaked, bugs squashed, interface oiled.
  It's all good.
  
  
  
  

  Couple screens, high and low-end: Core2, 2GB RAM Celeron 500, 128mb RAM

  ...despite what memory usage some folks may mention, the old Dell on the right at 128mb of RAM is quite capable, even with shared video memory, of running apps as memory-hungry as Firefox without disk-thrashing. While the speed of such hardware might not be acceptable to some, if all you have available for a machine is comparable to the Dell, you will most certainly be able to run Absolute Linux, take advantage of all the latest, greatest software and not have to worry about lockups or stability issues. I ALWAYS test on older machine(s) -- that's a big part of what Absolute is about . . . (Image photoshoped Gimped by Paul.)






• Absolute 13.0.RC4 released
  Wednesday, 08/07/2009:
  
  New xorg server and several updated X module packages, updated SVG handling preference in firefox-3.5.2 (due to lockups in default 3.5.2 release), a few other updated libs.




• Absolute 13.0.RC3 released
  
  Wednesday, 08/05/2009:
  
  UI tweaks, persistent text clipboard daemon (very lightweight), new keyboard keymap setting utility, Geany is now default text editor (replacing Nedit) both due to increased utility and fact that the app is UTF-8 aware. Nedit still installed but will likely be phased out. Other package updates keep pace with Slackware. This should be the final release candidate, but no promises; fingers crossed for 13.0.




• Absolute 13.0.RC2 released
  
  Tuesday, 06/30/2009:
  
  Midori installed from main ISO, option to change to default in control panel. New KDE libs (in support of new K3B), a large number of interface tweaks, mostly to do with filetype handling. Seems pretty stable, looking for bug reports.




• Absolute 13.0.RC1 released
  
  Wednesday, 06/23/2009:
  
  Pre-release that includes fixes for slapt-get and wicd, addition of a control panel, centralizing control and eliminating the sometimes-confusing utilities menus. Big updates to Midori and inkscape on repositories (under /CD2). New theme, new logon, QT4 up and running several new applications along with QT4-based K3B. Overall a more cohesive look and simpler navigation. Wanted a release candidate so that 13.0 will not necessitate updates -- also wanted to have feedback on whether Midori is functional enough to become the default browser. (It uses about 1/3 the memory of Firefox in my tests.)




• Absolute 12.2.5 released
  
  Friday, 06/05/2009:
  
  New kernel, new package format, new python
  
  Every single package has been at least re-packed, majority modified/updated. Interface updated along with kernel, python, packaging system which is now txz-based and due to higher compression the main release contains much more than previously: OpenOffice and Java, as well as many other applications now fit on a single CD.
  Pcmanfm and rox have both been modified to seamlessly work with the TXZ package archives as well as the new "Add/Remove Programs" item in root menu. New volume control (now in system tray, sleeker.) New theme, more complete file type handling.




• Absolute 12.2.4 released
  
  Tuesday, 04/21/2009:
  
  This release brings QT4/KDE4 libs
  
  Updates to K3B, smplayer based upon this. Plus a large number of additions and updates. Several programs moved to CD2 or /extra.




• Absolute 12.2.3 released
  
  Monday, 03/23/2009: new (and slightly) improved.
  
  This release brings kernel-2.6.28.8, (seeing how Slackware updated their kernel the day after our last release. Bad luck, there.) Only a few other changes. New freetype and cairo working fine, when I first updated I must have ended up with a corrupt download or a bad burn on a disc -- because I had trouble at first but smooth sailing since.
  
  Updated GIMP (with all the extra scripts and brushes), updated netconfig to automatically restart inet1. Updated WordNet dictionary to version 3.0 (changing run script so no environmental variable needs to be set.) Added SciTE editor and Secret maryo Chronicals game to CD2.




• Absolute 12.2.2 released
  
  Wednesday, 03/18/2009: Grab it from the downloads page.
  
  This release brings kernel-2.6.28.7, autoinstall defaults to ext4 filesystem. (Regular install allows for ext3 and reiserfs as well.) The kernel, for now, is the Slackware hugesmp, so it is Slackware "stock" Waiting feedback if users like this or would rather get specific cofiguration tweaked. The large number of changes along with imminent bump in Xorg led me to go with the flow for now in order to expidite and allow easier input from Slack-compatible repositories.
  
  In addition to the new kernel there was a very large number of application as well as library updates -- so installing via update/gslapt is not advised. Only real interface tweaks were making sure ROX-Filer did not run pinboard even when set not to (this saved us a bit of memory usage) and if you switch from netcofig or manual network setup to wicd usage the rc.inet1.conf automatically gets reset at boot -- so you won't get confused or have to tweak your configuration.




• Absolute 12.2.1 released
  
  Thursday, 01/08/2009: Grab it from the downloads page.
  
  This release updates several major programs due to security issues. This includes Firefox, Thunderbird, Samba, Seamonkey and Pidgin. Pidgin also updated to correctly configure notification/alert sounds. Updates also enable auto-start of PTP cameras (like Canon), updated GIMP and GIMP-help (help on CD2 zip) and updated wicd (for wired and wireless connection management.) Plus a few others...




• Absolute 12.2.0 released
  
  Sunday, 12/14/2008:
  
  Uploading to both repositories along with SourceForge caused quite a delay -- so I just ordered the "turbo" version of RoadRunner (my ISP) to try to speed things up, but I did this last year and it did not help much. They claim better upload speeds now, so we shall see...



•   absolutelinux.org
  Tuesday, 12/09/2008: switched from being parked on personal homepage to this site.



•   Repository obained
  Friday, 11/14/2008: Many, many thanks go out to Darren Austin of slackware.org.uk for providing us with the package repository. this has enable a sane release schedule as well as the ability to set up gslapt/slapt-get within the distribution to facilitate updating in a simple and reasonable fashion.