Absolute Linux Discontinued

[Germ]

It was a great little distro for old computers. I've known Paul Sherman for 14 or 15 years and he was very passionate about Absolute. I ran Absolute for several years on old machines. It used IceWM and ROX on top of a customized Slackware.

From Distrowatch:

While we usually focus on new distributions and new releases, today we are taking a moment to say a fond farewell to a long-lived member of the Slackware family. Absolute Linux was a lightweight child of Slackware with a focus on reviving older computers. The distribution has been in our database for over 17 years and we covered new releases from the project as recently as June 2024. Unfortunately Absolute Linux is being shut down.

A notice on the project's website states:

"Age, expense, but mostly lack of time leave me no choice but to give it up. I won't bore you with the crybaby details, but I gotta make ends meet. If someone wants to take the distro over, I would be happy to freely pass it on. I enjoyed tinkering all those years!"

Unfortunately, the website is already down. I would take it over but just don't have the skills.

[AVLinux]

That's tough..

Always sorry to hear these kind of things, I know people doing this stuff are always being crushed between time conflicts with work and even family and an altruistic sense of obligation to their User base. There are a few angels out there but most of these projects don't even cover their out of pocket hosting and hardware maintenance expenses let alone generate any income for the time and expertise invested. Wishing Mr. Sherman the best and in an ideal world maybe a return if his fortunes improve..

[Germ]

Yea, I hate to hear it too. He originally it made for himself to use and he decided to share it. It's a shame it had to come to an end.

[Adrian]

That reminds me, I should try Slackware, I never got to try it, I think I tried all the major/original distributions except Slackware.

[DukeComposed]

Yea, I hate to hear it too. He originally it made for himself to use and he decided to share it. It's a shame it had to come to an end.

It's sad to see a FOSS project end, especially one run by a person with a lot of heart. There's always a risk that circumstances can force any labor of love to wrap up, and that risk increases tremendously when the project is run by just one guy. I remember looking at Absolute Linux while I was compiling a menagerie of installers on a Ventoy USB drive. I still have the torrent files for a couple Absolute ISOs from 2023. Ultimately, I'm glad I didn't get too invested in it purely out of a selfish desire to not have to replatform my machines every time just one guy decides to quit. Quite a bit of the open source community contains projects controlled by one person and the chances of the project outlasting that individual's motivation can be astonishingly low. We discussed this and how it compares to MX after neofetch was discontinued. It's a big reason I still won't take a dependency on HardenedBSD.

That reminds me, I should try Slackware, I never got to try it, I think I tried all the major/original distributions except Slackware.

There is a very nice Slackware variant called Salix. I keep meaning to try to figure out how to get it to run ZFS on root.

[Adrian]

Oh, I think I did try Slax... that was pretty nice, I think I used the Slackware based one, I see now they have a Debian one too.

[siamhie]

That reminds me, I should try Slackware, I never got to try it, I think I tried all the major/original distributions except Slackware.

I used Slackware from 2001 to 2020 when I decided to try a Debian based system (MX won out) after the guy that introduced me
to Slack had a friend that ran Debian and I was always curious how the other OD was like. fluxbox was my desktop of choice
with Slack which is why I have a passion for it. Several years back I did check out Minix just to see where it all started.

[uncle mark]

Always sorry to hear these kind of things, I know people doing this stuff are always being crushed between time conflicts with work and even family and an altruistic sense of obligation to their User base. There are a few angels out there but most of these projects don't even cover their out of pocket hosting and hardware maintenance expenses let alone generate any income for the time and expertise invested. Wishing Mr. Sherman the best and in an ideal world maybe a return if his fortunes improve..

The story doesn't have to have a bad ending. We wouldn't have MX -- at least not in its current form -- had not Warren Woodford decided to hang it up with Mepis.

[Germ]

True about MX and Warren. But I fear Absolute has too small a userbase for anyone to take it over.

[Markus85]

That reminds me, I should try Slackware, I never got to try it, I think I tried all the major/original distributions except Slackware.

I already tried "Snailware" and asked myself why should anyone use such a distro in 2025 ...
Oldschool installer, outdated packages, manual install of dependencies, hardware problems on my laptop.
I reinstalled Slackware several times because it was not bootable anymore after I tried to install a newer kernel.

So if you're looking for a new hobby, give Slackware a try.