Absolute Linux is a light-weight modification of Slackware Linux

Absolute is a x86 Linux distribution based upon Slackware.

It concentrates on "desktop" use so that it is ready for internet, multimedia, document and general home use out of the box.

Absolute is lightweight -- meaning 2 things: that it can run on on older hardware and that the OS interface stays out of your way.

It is version-compatible with Slackware so you can use almost any package from the same version of Slack on Absolute.

Development libraries (headers) for everything installed are always included, so you can code and/or build almost anything from source.

It is what I use all day, every day, and I am very thankful for Linux and Slackware and I hope others find benefit from my work on Absolute.

Recent releases:

• 2011-04-29: Distribution Release: Absolute Linux 13.2.2
• 2010-07-04: Distribution Release: Absolute Linux 13.1.2
• 2010-06-09: Distribution Release: Absolute Linux 13.1.1
• 2010-02-03: Distribution Release: Absolute Linux 13.0.8
• 2009-12-20: Distribution Release: Absolute Linux 13.0.5
• 2009-09-26: Distribution Release: Absolute Linux 13.0.2

Update: (via Distrowatch)

Paul Sherman has announced the release of Absolute Linux 13.2.2, a lightweight, Slackware-based desktop distribution featuring the IceWM window manager: "Absolute Linux 13.2.2 released. Use of HAL has been dropped for newer ConsoleKit and udisks, as well as LXDE's newer version of PCManFM. Code changes for the Absolute customizations in libfm and PCManFM are included in /usr/doc for each package. Devmon replaces halevt to handle DVD and audio CDs. You'll notice edits to .initrc, .bashrc .bash_logout as well as the start-up file for IceWM reflecting the changes." Other major changes include switch to LibreOffice as the optional office suite, upgrade to IceWM 1.3.7, and synchronisation of packages with Slackware's current tree.

See the brief release announcement and the detailed changelog for further information.

Download (MD5) the installation CD image from SourceForge: absolute-13.2.2.iso (698MB).

Absolute Linux is a light-weight modification of Slackware Linux. It includes several utilities that make configuration and maintenance easier and it has many common desktop and Internet applications installed and configured with tight integration of menus, applications and MIME types. Absolute Linux uses IceWM and ROX for its window and file managers.

Screenshots:

Desktop with control panel, calendar and volume control open
File managers
Both Pcmanfm and Rox-Filer open.
(Green lines indicate where you can use one file manager to open the other.)

Why two file managers?
Because I use two.
They do things differently,
both both do some things better than the other...
It comes down to speed and flexibility.
Drag-N-Drop (between windows):
[Pcman -> Pcman] on same drive moves file.
[Pcman -> Rox] (or Rox -> Pcman) on same drive copies file.
[Rox -> Rox] on same directory also asks if you want to move,
copy or symlink (both hard and soft)
Other:
Pcmanfm will show volumes in its left panel. You plug something in - it shows up there. it takes care of our desktop and background and generally does a good job at letting us tool around the filesystems.
Rox-Filer will open a very large directory, like /usr/bin, MUCH faster than Pcmanfm. Also, ROX is set to show thumbnail images (Pcmanfm is NOT.) In ROX, the one-click icon size increase acts like an image viewer for directories. (See below.)

And to highlight the simplified pcmanfm toolbar:
Other Screenshots
XMMS (MP3, ogg, flac, CD-ROM Player)
and Time-Setting utility
(time set available when right-click taskbar clock)

Choose default browser
available from control panel > networking > browser
Base install gives choice of Midori and mozilla-firefox
Real slow machines can use Midori which is quite lightweight

Multimedia Installer
if you are OK to use the extra codecs . . .
Available from control panel if running as root user.
Usually taken care of right after installing Absolute.
Codecs are downloaded and libraries (including ffmpeg) are compiled right on your machine. On AVERAGE this process takes about 1/2 hour.