Moving Your Kids to Linux?

telecaster asks: "My kids are aged 11, 7 and 3. All of them are computer savvy. They use the computer for basically three things: Games, writing papers and chatting with friends, as well as browsing sites that are frequented by children their age (Nick, Cartoon Network, How Things Work, Yahoo!Kids, and others). All of this is supervised and watched by my wife and I -- we don't use any parental filters since we've found they just don't work, and it's just better to keep a watchful eye anyway. I would like to move them off Windows XP and introduce them to something less expensive (free) and more reliable. I'm rebooting this machine probably four and five times a week, not to mention the forever problem of lockups and hangs which seem to happen during the times where the 3 year-old is using the machine. I know the crashes are mainly due to the older games that the kids play which are not totally compatible with XP, but hey, they USED to run just fine under Windows98."

"My real motivation to do this is to save money and to teach my children that sometimes the best isn't always the most expensive. Also, being the cheap bastard that I am, I'm looking at all the money we've spent on Windows XP, Office and all the games over the years, and I'm wondering if there isn't a way to slowly supplant Linux into the mix and not sacrifice my children's computer experience but at the same time save some money and teach them something new.

My requirements are simple: I would like them to run their CD-ROM based games (which are mostly Director based games from Hasbro), and I would still like them to chat with their friends and also be able to play online Flash and Shockwave based games from Yahoo and Shockwave.

I believe I'm looking at an OpenOffice situation to replace Office, I suppose that would be fine and I think would work out (they aren't required to have perfect Word compatibility, its basically type a paper, and print it). For chat we're probably OK too, because something like GAIM would be fine -- Jabber based things would also be cool.

But my real concern is the CD-ROM games and Windows based games. I can't see my 3 year-old putting a CD-ROM into the drive and expecting it to auto-load and run like it does on XP -- without issues -- even with a perfect installation of WINE, hey, maybe I'm wrong, but is there a way to have it work as good as windows?

I've thought about loading up Mandrake and getting WINE working to see if it'll work out, but I'm not sure that I should waste my time, so I thought I'd ask some readers here if they're run into this situation and if I'm just crazy for thinking that this would be the wise thing to do at the expense of my children's computing experience."

Comments

http://www.linuxforkids.org/

[matsh]

http://www.linuxforkids.org/

Mats

Macromedia

[artemis67]

Kids sites tend to use a lot of Flash, from what I've seen. My 3 year old spends a lot of time playing games on the Disney and Noggin sites.

Unfortunately, the Flash player for Linux is still at version 5. Not a huge problem, as most Flash apps are still compatible with 5, but it does mean that you will run into problems until they release an update.

Re:Macromedia

[napa1m]

Here at nickelodeon we still author and produce content in Flash 5 to ensure maximum compatibility, both cross-platform and for those with un-updated browsers. Its amazing how many people buy a PC and never bother upgrading any software, drivers, etc, until they buy another PC :)

We keep track of Flash 6(MX) adoption rates across the board and won't switch development until it is supported by a very large percentage of visitors (90-95% or so, not entirely sure.. I'm an artist, not the techdev people). So for the sites of major players it (hopefully) won't be a problem, as they tend to lag behind a bit to allow people to catch up. We (and other sites) also offer alternate content for people without Flah, you can get to our site and do/see many things. However, since our content is comprised mostly of animation and games, Flash really is a must-have for kids. ^nA

Worth it?

[Junta]

I mean, if you already have a copy of Windows for some reason or another and a dedicated system, is there value in moving them to Linux? Will they come to appreciate any of the features Linux has to offer if their administrator (the father) hides all the differences from them? XP/2000 are relatively stable (about as stable as a kid would really need), and it is what the edutainment/games companies develop for. Sure you could rig something with magicdev and wine to do autorun stuff, but what is the gain?

Now there are many applications where Linux has some incredible advantage over Windows. Professional workstation use, server, power user desktop, multimedia playback (freevo/mplayer is very HTPC friendly...), but I'm not sure edutainment works in this area *if* you already have a licensed copy of Windows. There is no reason compelling you to upgrade to the latest and greatest MS, if Win98 worked fine, why buy XP? I think you'll find a lot of problems encountered during a three year old's use of a computer will happen regardless of the OS, and Wine will not likely meet your expectations as a full Windows replacement.

You can use free software with your Win98 (or XP, or 2000). OpenOffice doesn't require linux, and a lot of free applications now run under Windows.

Programming

[lostchicken]

The first thing anyone should learn with a computer is how to code using a very, very simple language. I used MS QuickBASIC.

If you first use the computer to use applications, then you will forever think the computer is a device for word processing, viewing web pages, and the like. As you learn more applications, you will think that the computer can do more, say allow you to layout pages, but you will miss the main point of the computer.

The computer is a tool. If the first thing you learn to do is code, you will see that the computer is a tool for processing input, and generating output. That's all it does, but it does it very, very well.

I have been in a classroom environment where we were told to make a change to a single spot in an entire web site (~70 pages). Out of 20 people in the room, 19 of them opened FrontPage, made the change, and repeated. I wrote a script and finished in 5% of the time. They used the computer for what they thought it was for, applications, and I used it for its real purpose, processing data.

Flash 6 for Linux

[Laven]

Flash 6 is currently in beta for Linux, and is finally equivalent to the Windows and MacOS plugins.

http://www.macromedia.com/software/flashplayer/spe cial/beta/

It works great!

As for Shockwave, it works great if you install the Windows version with CodeWeavers CrossOver plugin.

Well this is what I found...

[Lumpy]

Kids dont have the freak-out factor that the brain-dead adults have when moving from one interface to another... the move to linux is braindead for them, and Open Office will work just fine for them.

Here's the problem... The schools TEACH windows and MS-Office.. the teachers do not care about abilities but Rote-memorization.. like "what menu is used to create a table in word" if you dont exactly follow what the teacher wants.. to get it wrong... doesn't matter if you were sucessful. add to this that sites like NICK.com and cartoonnetwork use alot of shockwave for the games.. that break under linux.

also, if your kids's friends use MSN chat or the other non friendly chat systems then those also break.. Yahoochat works fine for me under linux, but then I eliminate any chat apps for my daughter... there is no reason for her to get sucked into the chat addiction.. she can use the phone... and as for filtering... I blatently use Squid and a good blocker file. It's a transparent proxy, you cant get around it unless you hack it or hack my login on it.. and it is there to keep the HTML porn emails from forcing their way in front of my daughter's eyes on her email account. her account has only been used by friends of hers and as a login information for nick.com and cartoon network.. so one of those companies sold her email address to a spam list that was bought by some aisan porn sites.. nice... a blocking proxy is required, even when you supervise... porn adverts force themselves into our lives. and squid keeps them from being visible... at least the pictures...

The kids can translate to linux easily... It's just the education aspect and possible breaking of shockwave games that really keep my daughter from loving linux.

COMPATBILITY MODE!

[SlashChick]

"I know the crashes are mainly due to the older games that the kids play which are not totally compatible with XP, but hey, they USED to run just fine under Windows98."

This comment is late in the discussion, and I know it probably won't get modded up because of that, but Windows XP has a great built-in solution to that problem. It's called Compatibility Mode.

If you right-click on the program icon, click properties, and click the Compatibility tab, you can tell Windows XP to run a program under "Windows 95 mode" or "Windows 98 mode." This makes the program think that it's running under an older version of Windows, so it (presumably) won't crash because of the new 2000/XP APIs.

Also, it sounds like you've made little effort to diagnose the crashes. Hey, if you want to learn Linux, and have your kids learn Linux, reading system logs is going to become necessary. Start with the syslog for XP. It's in Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer. Look for any events in the System log around the time your computer was crashing.

I had a friend who was having major problems with XP. XP really doesn't crash that much on a good system. However, he was getting several BSODs a day. I asked him to look in his System log. Guess what it said?

"The driver has detected that device \Device\Harddisk0\DR0 has predicted that it will fail. Immediately back up your data and replace your hard disk drive. A failure may be imminent."

Um. Whoops.

System logs and Compatbility mode are your friends! I'm not trying to discourage you from running Linux, which I think you should at least check out, but you need to fix the problems you have with XP before you move to Linux. Don't go to Linux because "XP crashes" (it shouldn't crash unless you have a problem, which might show up in Linux as well) -- go with Linux because you like it better or it does what you need. In the meantime, troubleshot your XP box and try out compatibility mode -- they will make you a much happier camper.

Re:Here's an idea...

[Jerry]

Great advice...Mod this guy up!

I am 61 and I've been hammering the keyboard since grad school in 1968 and have been programming professionally since 1980. I have never had problems with my wrists or fingers, except that I type faster than I ever have, and sometimes my mind thinks one thing and my fingers type (accurately) another, usually because I think, while I type, in terms of words and phrases, not letters.

About 10-12 years ago I had the symptoms of a heart attack while setting at the keyboard: numbing jaw and left arm, pain in the chest, and a clammy feeling with mild persperation. Alarmed I rushed to the doctor, who put me on a treadmill and gave my heart a clean bill of health. His next question was "do you spend a lot of time using a computer keyboard?" "Yes, why?" "Adjust the height of your chair & keyboard so you are not using your shoulder muscles to keep your arms elevated." Problem solved.