System Requirements

Absolute OS installation requires, at minimum, the following:

Hardware	Requirement
Processor	586
RAM	48 MB   -- 64 if you intend to use auto-mounting (hal)
Disk Space	3 GB   -- 4 GB if you wish to realistically use a cd burner
You need a bootable CD-ROM drive

The disk space requirement of 3GB should make for a functional system, including the ability to use a CD burner without errors -- provided you do not intend to store large downloaded files or rip music CDs. Upon install Absolute takes up just a hair over 1.8GBs of disk space.

The Software Series

For reasons of simplicity, Slackware has historically been divided into software series. Once called “disk sets” because they were designed for floppy-based installation, the software series are now used primarily to categorize the packages included in Slackware. Today, floppy installation is no longer possible.

You may also note that Absolute does not include a few of the Slackware series -- most noteably the KDE section. (A specialized version of the KDE libs is installed from the "L" series to support the use of KDE applications. But the window and file managers on Absolute are Icewm and ROX, respectively, with a backup of Fluxbox/Fox PathFinder.)

The following is a brief description of each software series.

Software Series

Series	Contents
A	The base system. Contains enough software to get up and running and have a text editor and basic communication program.
AP	Various applications that do not require the X Window System.
D	Program development tools. Compilers, debuggers, interpreters, and man pages are all here.
F	FAQs, HOWTOs, and other miscellaneous documentation.
K	The source code for the Linux kernel.
L	Libraries. Dynamically linked libraries required by many other programs.
N	Networking programs. Daemons, mail programs, telnet, news readers, and so on.
TCL	The Tool Command Language. Tk, TclX, and TkDesk.
X	The base X Window System.
XAP	X Applications that are not part of a major desktop environment (for example, Ghostscript and Firefox).
Y	Games

Installation Method

CD-ROM

Boot from the CD and follow the prompts. The instructions in the Slackware Book can lead you through this, but there are some tips to make it easier for Absolute on the install page.