Absolute Utilities

Some are as simple as xterm boxes with basic Slackware utilities (ex. choose a window manager with xwmconfig from an xterm that is opened from the menu, while you are in the comfort of your desktop :)

Others are full-blown applications. An example is FONTpage, that is a utility to install/uninstall fonts on a per-user basis. But it also does previews, different colors and also renders PNG images of anything you want to save as a graphic.

Some are just creative menu "scripts", some bash scripts, others Python -- but one thing they all have in common is that they are lightweight, stand-alone little "apps" that are designed for a simple purpose each and they do NOT REPLACE the manual means of configuring your Slackware-based box . . .  They are meant to make your life easier, and take away a huge learning curve for those unfamiliar to the ways of Linux/Slackware.

Most are fairly self-explanatory. But I have made screenshots and written comments where appropriate to give folks who might be interested a feel for what has been done here. I am also including the source code for all but the largest applications. Links are to your left . . .

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I should point out that about half of these are SYSTEM configuration tools, and that they only show up in the menu if you are running as root.

And I'll take a moment to point out a basic point in the design of Absolute: SUDO (giving root access to users) does not feel natural to me . It does not feel secure. Logging out and logging back in as root takes but a few seconds -- and that is how I set up Absolute to be configured. All configuration and software adding/removal is done from the root account in Absolute.

There are 2 exceptions to this to facilitate comfotable use as a friendly desktop, changing the system time and shutting down the machine. If you need to secure Absolute for use in the workplace, or safeguard things from those satanic children, then run visudo and comment out the following line:

%users ALL=NOPASSWD: /sbin/shutdown, /sbin/hwclock

At that point, users will not be able to make any system-wide changes whatsoever. Alternatively, you could simply uninstall sudo from the machine. It is used for nothing else.