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

Re:Here's an idea...

[The Good Reverend]

The poster didn't say the kids spend all their free time "on the screen". He seems concerned about them, watches what they do, etc. It doesn't seem to me like he's letting his computer babysit.

Computers are a necessary part of the educational process. Not only are they gaining popularity in the classroom, but they're a fantastic research and learning device. They're more interactive than television, and can be a great secondary source to books (reviews, discussions, etc.) and toys (lego programming languages and the like).

I think it's more likely than not that these kids have toys, games and educational materials beyond the computer. Don't let the fact that you weren't 4 or 7 when you started using the box stop other people from teaching their kids early.

Re:Bad timing

[ejaw5]

Let the child decide

I have an 8 yr old bro and although he doesn't use a computer much, I always maintain one in his room for his use. I used to dual boot win98 and linux on his computer like mine (except mine dual boots w2k) so he can choose what he needs for the games he plays. Turns out, he used linux more often than the windows. ..and I've never talked about windows and microsoft with him like we do here on slashdot. Given that, he is able to use both OSes fairly well for his level. Once when I was out i had left my computer on Win2k running and when I came back he typed up a letter for me and drew a picture using Adobe Illustrator..which kinda amazed me b/c I only showed him Illustrator once a long time ago. On the Linux side, he likes the Gnome games as well as Tux Racer and Chromium B.S.U.

Eventually my "support" for his win9x became a nightmare and I just asked him point blank "do you need windows?" and his response was "no, I mostly use Linux".

Actually my 9 mo. old loves my mac

[EccentricAnomaly]

My baby loves to listen to music and watch the visualizations in iTunes.. it calms him down when he's screaming and puts him to sleep when he's tired. Also all babies like to look at pictures of themselves and other babies... so the iPhoto slide show also works to calm him down.

Seriously, my iMac is the easiest way to put my baby to sleep... making it a wonderful investment!

Of course, he likes the light on the optical mouse and is always reaching for it and trying to chew on it... which is not a good thing.

I think it would be nice to have a simple rugged PDA type computer to use as a baby toy... it could play music with bright colors.. and run simple little games for toddlers.

Re:Here's an idea...

[Jucius Maximus]

"Why not encourage books and hands-on creative outlets rather than computer screens? Do you think they really need to learn about computers at age 3 and 7? Maybe the 11 year old, but I shudder to think you would try to teach your kids ANY OS at such a young age."

Starting them early gives them an advantage. I was editing autoexec.bat when I was 7 and 8 years old, building machines when I was 13. Now I pay for university tuition and books by having programming and hardware jobs. (Debt free student.) Learning early pays.

parent = sysadmin?

[rnd()]

I suggest letting them continue to use Windows XP. If it keeps crashing, they'll complain. When they ask you, "Dad, why does it crash?", tell them honestly that it's because some of the software doesn't have 100% compatibility with the OS. "What can we do to fix it?", they'll ask.

As others have pointed out, the truthful answer is to revert to Windows 98. So why even mention Linux?

What if you asked if they wanted to try out a different OS with different games? Then, install a copy of RH or Mandrake and all of the free games that come with it. Then, set up KDE/Gnome with the right age-appropriate menu for each kid. In this way, you will be using Linux's flexibility to give your kids a better user experience.

Also, what about investing in a bigger HD and copying the CDs to the drive so that your 3 y/o doesn't have to swap CDs and rely on autoload. You could even consider installing VMWare (or maybe Wine, if it turns out to work) so that your kids can go into Windows when/if they want.

Over time, each of your kids will develop preferences on which OS they like.

One caveat, however: One of the best ways to learn about computers is when they're not quite working 100%. Let your kids learn from this on their own. Sometimes, it may take a few hundred program crashes to motivate a kid to read a few HOWTOs.

Re:The best situation...

[visualight]

We have a 12 y/o girl here and we've been dual-booting for about 6 months. When it was up to her linux almost never got booted up. We wanted her to use linux more, mostly because you have to know more than "click next" to change anything. Now linux is used almost 100% of the time. We did it by forbidding internet access from Windows.

Re:Ha! Good luck.

[MrResistor]

Young kids don't understand the value of a dollar nor the importance of freedom and until they do it's silly to force it on them.

Young kids understand what they are given the opportunity to learn. My 2-year-old knows what money is, and she knows that we have to buy things before we can take them out of the store. She knows where to put the item on the checkers counter, and at which point she will be able to handle the item again. That these things are bought with money shouldn't be difficult for her to understand, and if she hasn't figured it out already it's only because I prefer to be cashless.

Likewise, any kid that has been grounded or put in time-out knows the value of freedom. Relating it to software may not be a simple thing, but they already understand the basic concepts.

The whole "kid friendly software" thing is a straw-man. How many of us had kid friendly software when we were kids? Even the games I loved and played all the time would be considered kid hostile by todays standards, and yet I, a kid, had no problem using them.

Retraining is an adult issue, not a kid issue. Kids adapt quickly and easily, they have to; the bulk of their first 20 years is largely training and retraining.