Monday, September 29, 2008

Distro#4 Absolute 12.1.07

A Slackware-based distro for i486+ architecture focuses on lightweight, easy installation, desktop purpose, stability and security.
The words above is what I see from Absolute Linux's website. I haven't tried Slackware, therefore I can't tell if it is better after I install Absolute. There are two install CDs, only first one is necessary, second one has kernel source and some usual applications, e.g. OpenOffice. You can read a list of packages at download page. There is also a Step-by-Step page has many screenshots about installation process if you want a peek at the process.

At 0458, I booted up from cd, chose AUTOSETUP to install, which used reiserfs as default file system. Started installing packages at 0501. At 0510, configured for modem/mouse/network/startup services/timezone/etc. 0513, pressed CTRL+ALT+DEL to reboot. The whole installing process took only 15 minutes, that is the fastest I have installed. Quite amazing.

After logged in as root (we will create one normal user later) and startx, the resolution is incorrect, 1792x1344. Window manager is Icewm. The startup sound is kind of weird.., then you will read a First Run info for Absolute document in Firefox. xrandr doesn't report the correct one. I decided to download the official nVidia driver. PPPoE is able to be set up (pppoe-setup) right away and lynx is available to download the driver. I don't have kernel source, I guess the only way (I don't know if kernel is patched, therefore I wouldn't download from kernel.org) is to download the CD2 entirely. So far not so good, I wouldn't recommend anyone this distro, LFS is more easier than this. After downloaded the CD2, there is a .txt, which denotes "This is the complete and unmodified source code for the Linux kernel."

I unpacked it, a slack-desc is right there. Obviously, a package manager is in this system, but I don't know what it is and nothing is mentioned on the website (Later, after installed nVidia, I found out that info is written in the First Run info or this Getting Started, sorry Absolute. But what if the user never can get into X?). I got the information from Slackware's website. I ran installpkg kernel-source-2.6.24.7_abs-noarch-1AL.tgz, the nVidia driver installer built the driver. Oh yeah! nVidia green logo!

Now, I am following the first time info. First thing is to install optional multimedia packages from main menu. The dialog says that may take a half hour to install. Mean while, I created a normal user and check what I have in main menu. The file manager is ROX. The Documentation submenu collects documents of Slackware, Absolute, Icewm, ROX, other apps, etc. Firefox is 3.0.1, Flash works out-of-box, also has Asian fonts. There are many utilities I haven't seen before. The optional multimedia packages finally installed after more than an hour, downloading took too much time. I then reboot to count the booting time, that takes 40 seconds, that is longer than I expected.

Generally, Absolute is quick and easy to install, that's all the features I can name for it. Lastly, a screenshot
and a weird penguin (a result of waiting installing multimedia packages)

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