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http://www.ubuntu.com/

For Christmas, I will be getting all of my relatives and friends Ubuntu installation and live CDs, via the Ubuntu ShipIt service. I'm going to wait until Ubuntu 6.10 is released, so that they can experience the latest software advances within the Linux and open source communities.

You probably think I'm a cheap fuck for giving them CDs that I get for free. But that's just part of the deal. The other part is that I will back up their old systems, install Ubuntu, and help them get started. It will no doubt be a difficult and time consuming undertaking, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for the safety of my friends' and relatives' computer systems, as well as for the entire open source community.

For Christmas, I will be getting all of my relatives and friends Ubuntu installation and live CDs, via the Ubuntu ShipIt service. I'm going to wait until Ubuntu 6.10 is released, so that they can experience the latest software advances within the Linux and open source communities.

You probably think I'm a cheap fuck for giving them CDs that I get for free. But that's just part of the deal. The other part is that I will back up their old systems, install Ubuntu, and help them get started. It will no doubt be a difficult and time consuming undertaking, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for the safety of my friends' and relatives' computer systems, as well as for the entire open source community.

Or they may not be sure what do yet--remember that Ubuntu is closely tied to Debian and adopts many of their changes. My prefered solution would be Epiphany in main as the default browser, Mozilla version of Firefox in restricted or multiverse and Iceweasel in universe.

This is the official logo

If you do decide to setup Linux for a media center you could use MythTV to create your own personal video recorder (PVR). I haven't tried it yet, but I am a Linux user who has been thinking about trying MythTV. I plan to get a copy of the book "Hacking MythTV" and try it out. The easiest option would probably be for me to use KnoppMyth which is a Linux distribution specially designed to make installation of MythTV as easy as possible. I also ran across some info about KnoppMyth at KnoppMythWiki. I am not really sure what effect a DRM restricted future might eventually have on a Linux media center. Perhaps Hollywood, Microsoft and Congress will somehow eventually block access to most content for open non-proprietary solutions.

If someone isn't already a Linux user Ubuntu or Kubuntu might be a good choice for general use. I have not looked into how they would be for multi-media or PVR use though. With Ubunutu or Kubuntu you can use the Synaptic package manager to download free software from the list of thousands of free progams that are avaiable and have it installed with the dependancies taken care of automatically. For various legal reasons most versions of Linux don't come preconfigured to play DVD movies or MP3 files. That is somewhat of a nuisance, but instructions on how to do that are available on the Internet and in some books.

With Linux I can rebuild my computer with a new motherboard and other hardware without worring about licensing issues. With Linux, no need to scan for viruses or worms either! My understaning is that viruses and worms are pretty much a Microsoft only problem. It's not a significant issue for Linux, Mac OS X, or Unix. As much as I like Linux, a barely computer literate computer user would probably be best off hoping that the day eventually comes when local stores start selling boxes with pre-installed with Linux just like Windows. Go ahead and make Windows licensing as annoying as possible to help that day eventually come.

Oh, wait!

1) I've made this "humping weasel" logo (see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IceWeaselIcon ) and I'm not involved in the development of Debian, Ubuntu, Firefox or IceWeasel in any kind.
2) This logo is NOT the official logo of IceWeasel! It is still up for discussion what the logo will look like.
3) There is NO political statement intended. This logo was made "just for fun". It is based on the original, not animated and completely inoffensive logo of Mark Riedesel (see the wiki).

So, don't blame the people behind Debian, Ubuntu or IceWeasel. They are simply not involved in the creation of this "funny" logo. Blame me instead. Thanks.

The $500 does, however, ensure that there won't be any open source Windows drivers.

Anyone know what's up with Ubuntu?

• Fix No 1
• Fix No 2

Not Debian, but close enough: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IceWeaselIcon

Debian has policies in place and if they start making exceptions they have to make them for everyone.

Why? What would obligate Debian to make even one more exception, never mind exceptions for everyone who asks them?

That's a slippery slope argument -- a logical fallacy.

At most, it would encourage others to ask for exceptions, but Debian would be free to keep refusing them.

Debian making an exception to the DFSG for Mozilla would no more obligate them to let other groups bypass the policy than Ubuntu's exception for Firefox from their no-new-versions security policy obligates Ubuntu to ship new versions of other software instead of backporting patches.

Besides, if they let everyone do it, it wouldn't be an exception, would it?

Luckily, Ubuntu will still ship with Firefox so not an issue (even though it is a Debian distro).

Sorry, looks like I picked the wrong tab to paste in there. This IceWeaselIcon wiki page has several drafts.

Ubuntu is a free, open source Linux-based operating system that starts with the breadth of Debian and adds regular releases (every six months), a clear focus on the user and usability (it should "Just Work", TM) and a commitment to security updates with 18 months of support for every release (and with 6.06 LTS you get 3 years on the desktop and 5 on the server!).

Do you mean like this?

Gee, giving quality away for nuthin'? No wonder it's popular. What is this, the worker's paradise?

http://shipit.ubuntu.com/

I don't really care if anyone switches. I'm just tired of seeing all the stupid MS crap. People claiming it's "easy to use" when they haven't seriously tried any other OSes. People saying you have to constantly do all this maintenance crap (defrags, spyware checks, registry cleaners, AV scans, etc) with your computer all the time having the attitude that these are normal things to worry about with a computer. People asking me to "fix" their broken MS installs (which usually means having to just reinstall the entire system) and it usually ends up broken again one way or another. Even installing a program is risky because MS took forever to come out with a real packaging format, so most programs are installed by running some executable, which there is no way to know what it will do to the computer. I remember Quicktime could completely bork an install. I don't have much experience with installing on XP though, because I started avoiding working with Windows before it came out.

The defrag prevention shouldn't slow down reads (I assume that is what you are talking about), in fact it should only really slow down allocation a little bit. I mean, how much processing time is it going to take? Unless you are talking about lots of small files. But even then, I'm sure it fills in the holes one way or another.

I wonder if the slowness may be something else. What about these two posibilities: Ultra DMA is off, and the fact Linux is a server OS (which makes it crappy for desktop use).

For DMA, have you played with hdparm? I think most distros don't turn on DMA by default because it is risky with some buggy motherboards. PIO mode is the default and slower for various reasons, including because it uses processing time. hdparm -d 1 /dev/hda should at least turn it on for your first hard drive.

Linux is a server OS, so everything assumes you will be running many active programs all competing for I/O and processing time, so it is generally opimized that way. Desktops usually only have 1, 2 or maybe 3 programs which are active at once, and often they won't be competing for the same resource anyway.

Version 2.6 of the kernel has a few options to at least help with this problem. The most notable is the one where (I forget the term) task switching can be set from the usual 100 times per second to 250 or 1000/sec.

Sometimes setting the nice value (man nice) to a high negative number such as -10 or -19 on what you want to run fast helps. You can also use realtime priority (I forget the command, then again maybe it isn't in the standard installs.) Use caution on realtime priority because a program not designed for it or one that is processor intensive can lock your machine. rt priority gives your program a higher priority than the kernel, so it has to voluntarily give up the processor back to the system.

Because Linux is a server OS, it is assumed admins will be tuning it. So, if you really want it to perform, you will need to play with it. /proc is another place to look I think, though I mostly just use it to tune networking. man proc, though I think there is a howto or doc in the kernel source for it too...

Since you already have a Mac I don't see why you wouldn't want to just stick with it. They designed OS X for PC users[1] from the ground up, didn't they? Using fink you should be able to get all of the programs which are available to Linux users. I'd probably switch to OS X, but after the strokes, I don't have much money and I have trouble learning new things, so I don't know how well I would do with it.

[1] Note I am using the original definition of PC (which was coined by Apple), not the MS definition where it supposedly means only a computer running a MS OS.

But if you really want to use Linux and actually like the MS Windows' way of doing things, try Ubuntu and if you don't want to download a big iso, they send

You can get Ubuntu support. http://www.ubuntu.com/support/paid $250/desktop/year

your crack is right here. :)

Debian is non-existant on the desktop and has an atrocious brand.

I downloaded this for that purpose. I hear some people also report good results with this and with this, as well.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

Possible solutions can be found at: http://www.ubuntu.com/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/index.html/

I was wondering what I'm going to do with my Windows machine...

Here's one idea...

Netware is dead but OpenSuSE is still kicking. Although I'm thinking about switch to Ubuntu.

Workarounds can be found here and here.

Dear OpenOffice.org people,

ash-fox@Tapestry:~$ sudo apt-get install openclipart
Password:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
    openclipart-openoffice.org openclipart-png openclipart-svg
Suggested packages:
    gimp-svg inkscape sketch
Recommended packages:
    librsvg2-bin
The following NEW packages will be installed:
    openclipart openclipart-openoffice.org openclipart-png openclipart-svg
0 upgraded, 4 newly installed, 0 to remove and 6 not upgraded.
Need to get 39.8MB/193MB of archives.
After unpacking 371MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
Get:1 http://pl.archive.ubuntu.com/ dapper/universe openclipart-svg 0.18+dfsg-4 [39.8MB]
Get:2 http://pl.archive.ubuntu.com/ dapper/universe openclipart 0.18+dfsg-4 [3836B]
Fetched 39.8MB in 5m7s (130kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package openclipart-svg.
(Reading database ... 99998 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking openclipart-svg (from .../openclipart-svg_0.18+dfsg-4_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package openclipart-png.
Unpacking openclipart-png (from .../openclipart-png_0.18+dfsg-4_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package openclipart-openoffice.org.
Unpacking openclipart-openoffice.org (from .../openclipart-openoffice.org_0.18+dfsg-4_all.deb ) ...
Selecting previously deselected package openclipart.
Unpacking openclipart (from .../openclipart_0.18+dfsg-4_all.deb) ...
Setting up openclipart-svg (0.18+dfsg-4) ...
Setting up openclipart-png (0.18+dfsg-4) ...
Setting up openclipart-openoffice.org (0.18+dfsg-4) ...
Setting up openclipart (0.18+dfsg-4) ...
ash-fox@Tapestry:~$

Lots of love,
            Ash-Fox
          x x x

PS: Love the VB macro support.

Dear OpenOffice.org people,

ash-fox@Tapestry:~$ sudo apt-get install openclipart
Password:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
    openclipart-openoffice.org openclipart-png openclipart-svg
Suggested packages:
    gimp-svg inkscape sketch
Recommended packages:
    librsvg2-bin
The following NEW packages will be installed:
    openclipart openclipart-openoffice.org openclipart-png openclipart-svg
0 upgraded, 4 newly installed, 0 to remove and 6 not upgraded.
Need to get 39.8MB/193MB of archives.
After unpacking 371MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
Get:1 http://pl.archive.ubuntu.com/ dapper/universe openclipart-svg 0.18+dfsg-4 [39.8MB]
Get:2 http://pl.archive.ubuntu.com/ dapper/universe openclipart 0.18+dfsg-4 [3836B]
Fetched 39.8MB in 5m7s (130kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package openclipart-svg.
(Reading database ... 99998 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking openclipart-svg (from .../openclipart-svg_0.18+dfsg-4_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package openclipart-png.
Unpacking openclipart-png (from .../openclipart-png_0.18+dfsg-4_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package openclipart-openoffice.org.
Unpacking openclipart-openoffice.org (from .../openclipart-openoffice.org_0.18+dfsg-4_all.deb ) ...
Selecting previously deselected package openclipart.
Unpacking openclipart (from .../openclipart_0.18+dfsg-4_all.deb) ...
Setting up openclipart-svg (0.18+dfsg-4) ...
Setting up openclipart-png (0.18+dfsg-4) ...
Setting up openclipart-openoffice.org (0.18+dfsg-4) ...
Setting up openclipart (0.18+dfsg-4) ...
ash-fox@Tapestry:~$

Lots of love,
            Ash-Fox
          x x x

PS: Love the VB macro support.

Actually, Gentoo is probably one of the worst distro to start on. Who the fuck wants to read a bunch of manuals? If you're replacing your primary computer, you want something that just works. I used to say RedHat, back in '97-99, then Mandrake '00-03, but these days I say go for Ubuntu if you want something that just works. When you're ready to explore, it'll let you do that. Much better than wasting your time compiling everything under the sun.

Another thing to note, the Gentoo community is not helpful, and outright hostile, to newbies quite often. Ubuntu, on the other hand, has a larger and more helpful community.

Try explain that in terms that the average user will be able to understand.

1.2.1. Prerequisites
You must broadcast your essid from your router. This is not essential, and the wireless card will connect if broadcast is turned off and you specify the essid by hand, but it makes it easier to test.

Don't use ifup and ifdown until you configure your /etc/network/interfaces file. (see below for instructions on howto do that here.)

You must remove ndiswrapper if you where using it before, instructions on how can be found here;

You must remove wifi-radar, as it has a driver conflict with the driver.

If/when Ubuntu do a kernel upgrade to 2.6.17 or later you MUST use wl_apsta.o (the script does that). The new module does not have the invalid AP bug. To obtain the wl_apsta.o visit http://drinus.net/airport/wl_apsta.o. (From the bcm43xx team). The latest firmware package contains this driver.

Sorry, but no. I upgraded to FC4 to FC5 and my soundcard stopped working.

Debian / Ubuntu has had a program to conjugate verbs from the infinitive form for ages:

[pjssilva@catirina:~]$ apt-cache show brazilian-conjugate
Package: brazilian-conjugate
Priority: extra
Section: universe/text
Installed-Size: 224
Maintainer: Rafael Laboissiere
Architecture: all
Source: br.ispell
Version: 2.4.really.3.0.beta4-9.1
Suggests: ibrazilian
Filename: pool/universe/b/br.ispell/brazilian-conjugate_2.4. really.3.0.beta4-9.1_all.deb
Size: 64292
MD5sum: 64f1590f3d7122030d0f742316acb666
Description: Brazilian Portuguese verb conjugator
  This package contains a interactive program (conjugue) capable of
  conjugating portuguese verbs, as spoken in Brazil. The upstream version
  is numbered 1.0, but as it is distributed together with the Ispell
  dictionary for Brazilian Portuguese, it has the same version number as the
  ibrazilian package for Debian.
  .
  Homepage: http://www.ime.usp.br/~ueda/br.ispell/
Bugs: mailto:ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com
Origin: Ubuntu

Here is the example of conjugue in action:

[pjssilva@catirina:~]$ conjugue
Conjugue -- conjugador de verbos para a língua portuguesa
versão 1.1 (outubro de 99) por Ricardo Ueda Karpischek
envie correções, críticas ou sugestões para ueda@ime.usp.br.

Use por sua própria conta e risco.

Tanto o programa quanto o banco de verbos que o acompanha
são distribuídos sob os termos da licença GNU GPL. Isso
significa que podem ser livremente copiados e que trabalhos
derivados devem também ser disponibilizados através dessa
mesma licença.

"?" exibe um pequeno guia de utilização.
"n" exibe algumas notas importantes.

aguarde o término da leitura do banco...
lidos 83 paradigmas
lidos 3991 verbos
: amar
# paradigma: cantar (regular)
IS:amasse:amasses:amasse:amássemos:amásseis:amasse m
FI:amarei:amarás:amará:amaremos:amareis:amarão
TI:amaria:amarias:amaria:amaríamos:amaríeis:amaria m
II:amava:amavas:amava:amávamos:amáveis:amavam
FN:amar:amando:amado
PS:ame:ames:ame:amemos:ameis:amem
MI:amara:amaras:amara:amáramos:amáreis:amaram
IN:ames:ame:amemos:ameis:amem
IA:ama:ame:amemos:amai:amem
FS:amar:amares:amar:amarmos:amardes:amarem
PI:amo:amas:ama:amamos:amais:amam
IP:amar:amares:amar:amarmos:amardes:amarem
EI:amei:amaste:amou:amamos:amastes:amaram

Debian/Ubuntu has had a Portuguese verb program to conjugate verbs for a long time:

[pjssilva@catirina:~]$ apt-cache show brazilian-conjugate
Package: brazilian-conjugate
Priority: extra
Section: universe/text
Installed-Size: 224
Maintainer: Rafael Laboissiere
Architecture: all
Source: br.ispell
Version: 2.4.really.3.0.beta4-9.1
Suggests: ibrazilian
Filename: pool/universe/b/br.ispell/brazilian-conjugate_2.4. really.3.0.beta4-9.1_all.deb
Size: 64292
MD5sum: 64f1590f3d7122030d0f742316acb666
Description: Brazilian Portuguese verb conjugator
  This package contains a interactive program (conjugue) capable of
  conjugating portuguese verbs, as spoken in Brazil. The upstream version
  is numbered 1.0, but as it is distributed together with the Ispell
  dictionary for Brazilian Portuguese, it has the same version number as the
  ibrazilian package for Debian.
  .
  Homepage: http://www.ime.usp.br/~ueda/br.ispell/
Bugs: mailto:ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com
Origin: Ubuntu

I haven't decided whether to switch to Linux or OSX (I'm a professional web developer, and the GIMP and VIM just don't cut it), but I will NOT be installing Vista!

Do you have to decide right away? Why not download a bootable Linux CD and see if you like using it. If you do, install it on your hard drive and you're up and running. If you don't like it, then go ahead and get a Mac (and see if you can talk your dealer into a short "test drive" just to be sure - ours did).

If that sounds like you, don't forget to join a local team for Software Freedom Day '06.

Yes, it seems Ubuntu's competition, if merely only a perception, has given Debian a shoot in the arm. It wasn't but a week ago that I wondering what character from Toy Story was next to be used in Debian's developement cycle.

Perhaps Debian's position is, has been, and will always be that of a producer of 'raw' material which can be used by others to their own refinement.

They take the form 'Adjective - Animal' from the list here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DevelopmentCodeNames
And ofcourse, you can add to the list.

Has anyone sucessfully installed Ubuntu on a motherboard with this chipset? AFAIK I believe this is caused quote:
"due to the Intel P965 chipset has no more integrated IDE channel, thus the motherboard usually has an additional chip onboard for an IDE channel. In the current Gigabyte (I got one of them) and ASUS (think they have it too) this is a JMicron JMB363. Until very recently the kernel had a bug inside that made it unable to access the IDE/PATA channel. "
I put together page here to document the issue. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Core_2_Duo_Support

What Ubuntu lacks is a good 64bit version.
One of the advantages we are told of Ubuntu is that we don't have to wait on the long Debian development cycle. While that sounds good to the average i386 Ubuntu user. The amd64 Ubuntu user still has to wait on Debian. The reason I say this? In one word Multiarch.
Multiarch was supposed to make it into Edgy. It was mentioned in the announcement by Mr Shuttleworth
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/ 2006-April/000064.html But it is no longer included. The reason? Ubuntu developers are waiting on Debian to develop it.
Its like 64bit users are second class citizens. No multiarch while distro's like SuSE, Fedora, Gento and others are already multiarch. No Wine, a 64bit firefox where plugins dont work, and other 32bit programs that must be manually added along with their lib's.
All the while eye candy is added to the 32bit version. If it wasn't for the community and people there I would have left long ago. Its sad that people with 64bit systems are told to install the 32bit version because things are missing.

it is called what it is..

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/ 2006-April/000064.html

Try another distro. I tried a few, and SUSE was the only one that detected and worked with the wireless (using WPA-PSK right "out of the box", compared to the horror that is Ubuntu) and audio on my laptop. It also uses KDE, which I prefer, and suspend/hibernate works fine.

Maybe I've had unusually bad experiences with it, and maybe my dislike of Gnome makes me biased, but I don't understand the popularity of Ubuntu. I certainly wouldn't introduce anyone to Linux using it. Besides SUSE, I've also used MEPIS on some systems...its LiveCD works well, though it doesn't boot with WPA-PSK ready.

Inkscape is a great tool. I recently revised the www.bazaar-vcs.org website. My SVG mock-up is here: http://people.ubuntu.com/~mnuzum/projects/bzr/BZR% 20Concept2006-07-26-1.svg (open it in inkscape for the real effect).

I plan on documenting this process soon, because I know a lot of people ask about it, but here's what I do:
  * Get the newest version of inkscape that you can, they really are adding excellent new features with each release
  * Open a new doc and assuming 1024x768 target browser size set the document to 1000x600 px. For 800x600 go for 760x600px
  * Use the layers tool in Inkscape to separate portions of the document
  * Create a layer on the very top called "slices" and in this layer, create rectangles that are 10% opaqe or so that cover individual elements that will become images in the final product. This layer will usually be hidden.
  * Periodically save your document out as png... remember, most people have a screen res of *96 dpi* not 72.
  * When you want to save individual components, for example the logo in the example above, show your "slices" layer, click the square that covers your logo so that it's selected, then hide the slices layer. The square will be selected but hidden. When you choose export, it will export just the visible portion of the image you have selected.

I'm happy to give more details, I'm newz2000 on irc.freenode. I don't have a lot of time to chat, but ping me and I'll help out if I can.

Once we get guasian blur in inkscape I'll probably stop using photoshop. (Yes, I run photoshop in Linux - using crossover office)

Yes, but people at least tried AppleWorks and found that they didn't like it. If they had found that they liked it as well as (or better than) Office they wouldn't have bought Office. Nothing's wrong with that - they gave AppleWorks a try and found that they preferred Office.

"A typical home user trying to use linux would pay money. They will buy a distro at the local store which often charges for their update service and technical support as part of the price. Most of them are not tech savvy enough to pick another distro with free packages or compile software."

Yes, most people do pay for Linux. And $69 for OSX is reasonable (never used it myself but it certainly looks cool - and I've only heard good things about it).

However, neither of those comes close to XP Pro's $200 pricetag.

For most people it's not only about price, it's a balance between price and worth. Is Linux worth the $50 (or whatever) you pay at the store? Is it worth the free CD Ubuntu sends you in the mail? Is OSX worth $69? IMO, yes.

But is XP Pro -- which costs $100 to $150 more, and has all the same features (even less, in some cases) -- really worth buying? Is Office 2003 Basic Edition worth $190 -- especially when WordPerfect Office X3 Home costs about half that price, and OpenOffice is free? IMO, no.

Good products are worth paying for. Overpriced products are, well, overpriced - and most people won't buy them if they know of a good, compatible alternative. And it seems to me that MS products (well, Windows and Office, anyway) tend to be overpriced.

I'm sure there are many reasons for people to use this but my guess is that for a lot of people, human nature being what it is, they just like to pay for something, and not spend effort on it. I'm the "do-it-yourself-type" but a lot of people aren't. I'm not sure exactly how Linspire is distributed but if it's in stores, on a shelf and comes in a pretty box I think it's going to attract some people. And, again, I'm not sure where they are with this, but didn't Walmart sell off the shelf PCs a while ago preinstalled with Linspire? For a lot of people simply walking into a store and buying a computer with the software preinstalled is the only option. I would guess that a lot of folks aren't even concerned with what software, just price. And being what it is a Linspire PC is cheap.

If Linspire can get OEMs to preload it, make it available in stores and keep the prices down it's an attractive option to a lot of people. Paying for something, especially paying a low price, makes people feel good.

I remember back in the day I worked with some guys from another company on a joint project and they always bought off the shelf versions of RedHat*, keeping up with each release. We thought they were crazy at the time. Whenever a new release came out we downloaded ISO's and burned a few copies. They thought we were crazy. They liked the shiny disks, the book that came with it and the fact that they didn't spend a minute on burning or verifying ISO images. But that's what great about Free software, the choices. Me, I like Debian these days and recommend Ubuntu to friends, family and coworkers that ask about Linux. Ubuntu shipping free CDs certainly helps in that regard!

*RedHat - Pre RHEL

My distro is more dapper than yours.

My suggestion is to d/l edubuntu Live CD (x86, PPC, AMD64 versions available). I did this just this weekend and began showing my 6 year old around the system. There are a number of excellent applications for education (most above the level of the average elementary student, no doubt) and educational games. One is the LOGO programming language/environment, which is designed to teach programming to children. Also, in the GCompris educational packages is a "boat race" game that is a programming teaching aid (forward x, left degrees). Recommended.

My suggestion is to d/l edubuntu Live CD (x86, PPC, AMD64 versions available). I did this just this weekend and began showing my 6 year old around the system. There are a number of excellent applications for education (most above the level of the average elementary student, no doubt) and educational games. One is the LOGO programming language/environment, which is designed to teach programming to children. Also, in the GCompris educational packages is a "boat race" game that is a programming teaching aid (forward x, left degrees). Recommended.

My suggestion is to d/l edubuntu Live CD (x86, PPC, AMD64 versions available). I did this just this weekend and began showing my 6 year old around the system. There are a number of excellent applications for education (most above the level of the average elementary student, no doubt) and educational games. One is the LOGO programming language/environment, which is designed to teach programming to children. Also, in the GCompris educational packages is a "boat race" game that is a programming teaching aid (forward x, left degrees). Recommended.

My suggestion is to d/l edubuntu Live CD (x86, PPC, AMD64 versions available). I did this just this weekend and began showing my 6 year old around the system. There are a number of excellent applications for education (most above the level of the average elementary student, no doubt) and educational games. One is the LOGO programming language/environment, which is designed to teach programming to children. Also, in the GCompris educational packages is a "boat race" game that is a programming teaching aid (forward x, left degrees). Recommended.