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Moving Your Kids to Linux?
"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."
Well, since you asked for advice on raising your kids:
Move them off the screen altogether.
Nothing is going to promote the development of bad O/S interfaces more than indoctrinating young children to their quirks and bad design.
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.
Let them enjoy life for awhile before they have to deal with an OS.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
If you want something that works AS GOOD AS WINDOWS... then maybe you just should use Windows.
Dont ask for trouble
I have 3 kids of my own and work for home doing some consulting while my husband is off at work. Slowly I've been teaching them how to use Linux Mandrake hoping they will grow up to be Linux Kernel programmers or something ;)
;)
The oldest one (8) is getting good at loading Mozilla and is learning how to type using emacs. The younger two just like all the nifty xscreensavers
They're so cute!
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...
The new math?
...is to use both.
Have one PC for the things that they NEED Windows to run, and let them use it only for that. The other should run your free-OS of choice and related software.
As they grow older, teach them the difference, the improvements, and continue curtailing use of the Windows machine until it's just an expensive doorstop.
Very few migrations are successful when done immediatly and cold-turkey. Some are, but they are far and few between---especially when children are involved.
http://www.linuxforkids.org/
Mats
Especially now that XP phones home. I suspect that the games are going to eat my lunch, however. I don't think I'd even consider this for my oldest, who plays a lot of the latest and greatest. My youngest, on the other hand, tends to play much older games (like the kind that _require_ you to change the display resolution to 256c mode). I'm fairly sure this will be a problem as well, but I intend to give it a shot anyway within a few weeks, just to see.
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
Hell, just let them learn how to use the CLI
GUIs, never needed them when I was a little one!
Something else is wrong if you're rebooting 4 or 5 times a week. MS has a bad track record, but so far I've heard XP doesn't crash that often.
Taking your kids towards linux has two benefits here. It can cost you as a consumer less and it will give your kids (with good guidance) a good start in learning about computers and what they are truly capable of.
I am Lord Snowbeam. Heed my call!
I think that kids of such young ages shouldn't be exposed to the politcal bickering that is involved in an OS choice. Just give them Windows for now like all the other kids, if they're using computers already, and then when they're, say 12 or 13 introduce them to Linux and any other alternative operating systems so that they will be old enough and mature enough to make such a decision on their own.
Its like with religion or politics, really young kids shouldn't just be indoctrinated in one side or the other just because thats what the parents prefer. Let them make their own un-pressured choices. Not to mention starting them off with Linux would probably set them back they'd have to use Wintel PC's at school or over at a friends house.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Doesn't the KDE project have some learning-games for children?
I seem to recall them having those for a couple of languages. Anyone know more on this?
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
I assure you that old games should not be able to crash Windows XP.
If it is crashing then it's either bad drivers or a hardware problem. If you are using the default Windows XP drivers then it's almost certainly hardware related in which case Linux would be just as unstable.
Why not set the machine to dual-boot or try out one of the many CD-based Linux distro's to see how they get on for now without all the associated hassle if they have to revert back.
If they are happy with Linux and still wish to use Windows for the odd game then take a look at VMWare - yes it's more outlay but it will keep them happy for those games/apps they really want.
[)amien
[)amien
If you force it on them, they might decide to not use it at all. Maybe dual boot? If the kids like Linux, just ditch Windows and move on. If not, then they can go back.
Michael Loves Me!
This is reminiscent of the old platonic girl friend problem. You know, when you're friends with a girl you really like and they claim to need to find a guy that's just like you but not you. In this case you want an OS that's just like Windows but not Windows. Based on the analogy I've provided the best I can suggest is that you give up.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I tried this myself, but found I didn't have the patience or determination to get everything working smoothly. Shockwave just doesn't jive well with some web browsers on Linux. WINE is a work in progress and not sure to work. (Though, admittedly, even running games on WinXP that were designed for Win98 is iffy.) End result, a dual-boot system using LILO. Office-type software in Linux, games in Windows 2000, messenger in Linux, browser in Windows 2000. This works much better. I keep checking new stuff out -- so eventually more will move to Linux, but I refuse to spend weeks trying to get shockwave to move.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
I would want a choice of what I was using. When I was about 8 or so I made sure my parents knew I wanted a commodore. If your kids care they will tell you. If they don't then maybe they're not ready yet.
Kids' software generally isn't the most compatible stuff around -- there's just no reason to test on multiple units or port to multiple OSs due to its limited appeal. In order to get any kid's software to work, you're goign to have to fight like crazy to get them to work under windows emulators. Does this sound like the way to teach kids there's a "better way"...by fighting for hours to get software to run just to save $100 off the cost of a win2k license?
Kids' websites tend to be about the same. I run Opera and Moz at home and when my brother comes to visit we often discover that his favorite sites -- all flash intensive with tons of cool intel/windows only games -- don't work so hot. We have the same problem with my Mac.
As for open office...i'd have to say that it's not as kid friendly as MS office, which is NOT kid friendly at all. No office suite is. I pine for the days of Bank Street Writer.
If your kids are under 12, you're probably going to meet a lot of resistance to your plan. I don't think it's worth it...especially since it's so easy to teach kids WHY linux is good when they're older. 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. When they hit high school, then's where you spring your plan -- by getting them their OWN pcs, older machines running Linux, for school use.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
I know, I know, you are going to complain that Mac's are too expensive but the new $999 iBook is a steal (bought one for the mother-in-law), it doesn't crash like windows xp, lets them explore open source software and there is going to be a lot more cool stuff they can do than with a linux box like iMovie -- that will keep them out of your hair for weeks and you don't need a DV camera. Evidently, the kids in Maine are going ape-manure over their iBooks.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Ah yes son, you get to learn the way I did - only then will you truely learn to love cut & paste.
Democrats and Republicans only disagree about how to enslave you
Disconnect the wiring on the reset and power switch. My 18 Month old has become a savvy button pusher. His ability to sneak in there and hit that power switch is uncanny. I tried locking my computer in an desk encloser which works, but now He knows how to climb up to my desk using a bar stool type chair and use his toes to hit the buttons. Well as far as useful advice I switched to windows 2000, It allowed me to have much control over who can use what programs it's stable and allows the auditing I desire. In reality linux wasn't practical because many of the games my 11 year old daughter would like to play dont work. If you like me had fantasies of your child loving programing as you did as a geeky kid forget it. They lost interest after the " hello world
Maybe you should ground your kids for saying "Linux" instead of "GNU/Linux".
"Maybe it's both..."
Install linux. Install VM-Ware. Create a WINXP VM, and a WIN98 VM. Run the old 98 games on the 98 VM session. Run the new windows stuff on the WINXP VM session. Make backups of both. When they crash etc, just reload the saved state.
Problem solved. And the best part is your kids get to learn about virtual machines.
This episode of Seasame Street was brought to you by the letters 'V' and 'M'. Can you say Virtual Machine little childrens? I knew you could!
I'm in a similar position. When my son was 3 I started letting him use the computer (mainly because he exhibited the ability to mimic what he saw me doing). While I did pick up a few children's titles that were games and 'educational software' (YMMV) I also put an shortcut to a chess game on his desktop. He played chess as often as the 'child' titles without me prompting either way.
In other words, your kids will live without their windows based software if you can't get it to run on Linux.
I'm about to set up my first Linux based machine. I have many of the same motivations to do so, plus I just want to play with it. If things go well, my existing Windows based PC will likely be my last. Even though that means that I have to give up some of the games near and dear to my heart. It'll be worth it in the long run, I hope.
Grimwell - old, cranky, mean, obsessive
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.
Wine has issues with practically every problem it runs. Even pinball is flickering and slow. I don't think you can rely on it for more stability than XP. If anything, running them under Win98, the original system they were written for, should be more help.
I just received the happy news that my wife is two weeks pregnant. I will be a father for the first time, and I have 8.5 months to prepare for it.
My question is: What distro would you recommend for a new-born? Does anyone here have experience teaching unix administration to infants?
A follow-up question:
I generally spend my time on the command line, but I could see how it might be a difficult concept for a child to grasp in its first few years, especially while its motor controls are still developing. (i.e. no touch-typing yet).
I guess I'd be willing to load down the old box with a gui, but the question is, which one?
I'm thinking KDE 3.0., but is there maybe a more lightweight desktop that could be more intuitive for a young child? Remember, it won't be able to read menu items for a few years, so an intuitive graphical interface is very important.
Any thoughts are welcome.
No I don't mean get a copy of MAME, I mean use software like VMware or Plex86 to emulate any of the less resource demanding games. Also, bear in mind Linux has a plethora of FREE games available, many of which I find more mentally stimulating than their win32 based counterparts. And about worrying if it will be user friendly for your kids, computers weren't too user friendly when I was a kid, but I lernt em anyways :) Seriously, just stick your kids on a Linux box and they'll 0wn your root in no time
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
Everyone knows that to have kids, you must have a girlfriend or wife, something we all know Slashdotters don't have. This story should have been something more like "Moving your pet gerbils to Linux" or "Moving that person you cyber with to Linux". Moving your kids to Linux just won't really have that big an effect on slashdotters.
This is yet another demonstration of someone moving to Linux for the sake of it. You have to reboot four or five times a week?! Well that's five minutes and ten button presses.
You may have incompatibility problems with old games now, but I can assure you that they are nothing compared to the problems you'll have trying to run them through Wine.
And what about when your kids go to school? Unless they attend one in a very small minority they'll be using a different platform and will be behind the other kids.
You want to save money? Don't buy any more games - use the Shockwave resources on the internet. And you'll be fine with XP for another five years at least.
Free iPods - now in the UK!
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.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
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).
Lets see, an OS that handles games, writing papers, chatting with friends, and browsing flash-based sites.
Windows does all these well, and very easily. Most of these things require loopholes and extra steps for Linux.
So my question becomes "Why are you switching them to Linux? You already have a good solution for the time being!"
Switching your children over to linux without any "real" reason. Sounds like a troll to me.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
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.
-twb
Here's the problem as I see it: You want them to convert and you want to convert them over.
I think that, as you observed, since some things don't work as well as Windows, you'll have a problem if you try to get them converted.
My suggestion is to ensure that you can set up for them the majority of what they want, and then dual boot.
Make a point of never using XP yourself. Make sure you're seen in front of them running some really slick and attractive WM. With lots of shiney customizable things that can be tinkered with.
When they see you playing with it, they'll be interested. But if you put it in front of them and preach that "Its better! Its cheaper! Its magic sliced bread doohicky!" you won't get anywhere.
Let them have an account that'll let them do as much as possible that they could under XP, and let them tinker with it. They may tire of it, or they may be intrigued.
But either way, I bet you'll wind up with them learning less than if you tried to force them.
My kids actually prefer my linux machine to mom's 2000 machine. Something about all the cool games that install out of the box when you select "Debian Jr" during tasksel. :) My two oldest kids actually like this text based math quizzer, and try to out do each other on it all the time. I have them defaulted to KDE for the desktop, and most the stuff they do would be flash sites like Nick, bob builder, etc. I find it interesting that the kids go for the linux desktop vs the 2k box when they have all these games on both. For more on what's available for kids under linux goto the Linux For Kids website. Good luck, and just let the kids choose.
...start them on Windows now, so when they're in their teens and start rebelling, they'll move towards linux...
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
If your children play games, then I'd suggest just sticking it out with WindowsXP. I mean granted, the plethora of all five games ported to Linux is tempting, but most child development (learning games) are only coded for Windows.
If I were you, I would just get another computer and have it as an 'option' for them to use. Kinda let them pick up on it at their own pace.
I mean, making all three of your children move to linux because it's what you feel is best is like breaking their right hands because you want them to learn to write left handed. It just doesn't make sense and it'll probably only confuse and frustrate them.
Be the good parent, don't force them to convert. Give them the option, and let them make their own choice.
Keeping your kids away from Windows is an absolutely pointless idea because at some point in their lives they are going to be confronted with a Windows computer, likely sometime in the early grades of school. Your kids should be smart enough to reject the idea that Windows is the only opertating system that exists, but they shouldn't think that Windows is absolutely useless. I think the best thing to do would be to get a Linux computer, but keep the Windows computer functioning so that the 3 year old's games can still function. The 11 year old will certainly be old enough to understand that the Linux-based computer is "like the other one, but very different too" and that there are some programs that can only run on one computer and not the other. The younger ones will figure that out too eventually.
Not only do I want to move my 2.9 year old daughter onto Linux, but I've told her that immediately after potty training, she is to learn a high level language, or at least SQL. She should also be able to install releases such as Mandrake and Lycoris.
Then in a few years, I fully expect her to be able to handle Java and
By the time she's 13 or 14, she should have assembler under belt. With this knowledge, she can and should be able to write device drivers.
On my side, my goal is to find a job telecommuting, while 'home-schooling' the kid - who's computer science assignments will be doing my work for me so I can pursue the life of leasure I so richly enjoy.
And if you believe all that, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you
--- have you healed your church website?
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
I've got my brother on redhat linux, and it's a pain in the ass for me. He's 13, but all the time he wants me to get something else working - and with linux it all takes so long. besides that i'm a bafoon when it comes to RH (deb rocks).
I don't think he's learning anything, because he just uses mozilla to check his mail and such. He still doesn't know how to do anything with linux.
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
Boy, I couldnt even *read* at 3!!!!
I think you should be less worried about linux migration and more worried about your 3 year old taking over the world!
Why stick up for big business?
Contrary to linux belief you aren't crashign because you are using XP. You are crashing because your kids are playing old games. The solution is to get a cheap old computer for like 50 bucks at a garage sale put 98se on it and have your kids play the games on that. Then your XP machine will hardly crash at all.
Your kids will probably hate you for switchign to linux. For all my trying (dont' make fun of me) www.cartoonnetwork.com is completely incompatible with any non-windows OS. You simply can't play cartoon orbit ctoons or gtoons without windows. I even tried a wine/mozilla combo that lied to the website and pretended to be IE. No dice.
Another solution is to get your kids a console gaming system. A new one. They will spend so much time playing that that they will use the pc less and less for those games that crash it and more and more for flash/web based stuff, messenging, and paper writing.
Linux is not your answer. It would be nice if it was, but it isn't.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
I've often thought about how my own computer history affected my computer 'development', if you will. Personally speaking, my history is this:
- Osbourne (age 6-8)
- Commodore 64 (age 9-13)
- Commodore Amiga (age 13-17)
- and various Macs since.
I have a point here, stay with me. The earliest machines, the Osbourne and C64, had no GUI to speak of. If you really liked computers, and were technically inclined, you still had to dance circles to get the stupid C64 to do anything impressive. You had to learn the quirks, watching the behaviour of the disk drive LED (anyone remember that constant flashing red light? that meant BAD). In short, you had to really know what you were doing.
Amigas, too, just by virtue of the fact that it was the BeBox of the 80s. No support = gotta be resourceful.
If you could make those old computers do what you wanted to, consistently, then you basically had passed your trial-by-fire. You were a geek. More importantly, you were a geek that knew why computers act a certain way. The kicker is that you would really fly if given a computer that was half-capable. So, in moving your kids to Linux, you have an interesting experiment before you. If your kids are technically inclined, it might be one of the bigger favours you could do for their education. If not, however, I suggest you move them back - at least to a GUI - after a certain period of time. Some kids are nerds, some aren't. It's stupid to force a non-nerdy kid to compile stuff. If that kid happens to enjoy tinkering... you've opened up a whole new world, and possibly career, down the line.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
but he kept chewing up and spitting out the CDs. Didn't work very well.
sulli
RTFJ.
If your going to run a Windows system for your kids, buy yourself a copy of Ghost. I've only had to use it once on my two-year old's machine over the past six months (STILL not sure how he managed to delete the files he deleted to make the OS not boot!), but it will make your life a lot more pleasent.
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
I've noticed a lot of people saying "Well, I put Linux on my mom's computer," and now someone wants to make their kids use Linux?
Your kids might grow up to be great sysadmins if you do that. But if they're aren't computer lovers, your kids will just end up having an adversarial relationship with computers, and another generation of technophobes will be born.
While it's true that kids are flexible, and won't have much trouble figuring out the differences between the Windows or Mac they use at school and the Linux box at home, cutting your kids off from games, homework assignments, etc just because you like Linux so much is a bit of a rash decision. Don't you want the best for them?
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
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.
I generally spend my time on the command line, but I could see how it might be a difficult concept for a child to grasp in its first few years, especially while its motor controls are still developing. (i.e. no touch-typing yet).
Hey don't worry about it.
It may look like your 1 year old is pounding random sets of keys with her tiny fists, but she's really just typing Emacs key-sequences...
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Tell the 11 year old that he's absolutely, expressly forbidden to install Linux on your computer. If you're not fully migrated by the time he's 13, consider searching under his bed for a hidden Linux box...
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
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.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Linux works fine as a home OS, unless you try to make it be Windows -- which it isn't, and by and large isn't trying to be. It has its own educational apps (though mostly not of the same caliber), and a whole lot of childrens' apps are web-based and so should work just fine out of the box. Look at the native software available -- sure, it's not as pretty, but kids were using computers long before 256-color graphics (or even GUIs at all) were available. See a list of the educational games included in the the SEUL/edu (Simple End User Linux/Educational) project's index.
That said, if you still want to run your Windows-based apps, my vote is for Win4Lin -- it's cheaper than a new windows install (or running a separate machine), more reliable than WINE and will work with your existing win98 media and license. If it's strictly for your kids, you can call them and ask about an educational discount -- they've had those in the past, to about $40 or $50.
Finally, if you haven't used Linux before, go into this expecting an educational experience for yourself as well!
you could load those games that don't require x like hangman, they might actually learn something! as an additional bonus as long as you run linx browser (text only) there is little need for porn filters (you might end up learning how to explain some dirty words, but no pics!) why do we think we need graphics to keep kids interested? I lost entire summers to my c64 programing I think it was a matter of challenge and interest. I won't presume this is THE answer, but why not run two boxes one like this for them to learn on, and a windows box for supervised time?
Wine really isn't mature enough for general use (it's not at 1.0 yet), unless you buy the prepackaged, stable versions sold by CodeWeavers (Crossover Plugin and Crossover Office).
Female Prison Rape in NY
I've got my kids running Linux (Red Hat 8) on laptops (ages 12, 12, 14) for both school and home.
OpenOffice works fine for all their school work, and they connect fine to the school's wireless LAN. They can connect to the shared drive in school to save work, thanks to Samba.
However, web sites are a different matter. Linux doesn't do Director so they all were pissed about not being able to do much with Nick.com, Disney.com, CartoonNetwork.com, etc. until I got them all CrossOver Plugin and installed the Shockwave Director plugins.
Fortunately RealPlayer, Xine and MPlayer are good enough for playing all media content. This will be 100% true when Mplayer makes the latest install easier and handle Quicktime Sorensen better.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
If you have kids, and you have Linux (or even if you have Windows or Mac OS X), try out Tux Paint!
;^)
It's my answer to "Debian Jr. only came with The GIMP - I can't use the Gimp! How could my 5 year old!"
then maybe you just should use Windows.
What version? OP wants something as stable in general as Windows XP but which runs older games as well as Windows 98 did.
Will I retire or break 10K?
As another reader points out, if you want them to be able to run Windows games, you need to have them on Windows. WINE may work OK, but it's not perfect, and I wouldn't bet on every game they want to play working under WINE.
If you're hell-bent on having them run Linux, and saving money thereby, why not run something like VMWare ? You can have virtual Windows machines running games for them, you can have multiple VMs so if you install one game that buggers Windows you can just build a new VM without having a "real" re-install, you can copy the VMs around so you have one stable known VM in which to install new software, and each kid can have their own VM - complete with their own software, files, etc. If the kid accidentally screws up Windows, you just copy over the VM file from some backup and are back in business. Sure beats having to reinstall the OS every time some badly written app or kid-gone-awry corrupts Windows. And having "real" Windows running means that the chances of incompatibilities or problems with Windows applications goes to nearly nil.
Then all the other apps that are viable under Linux (say, for argument, OpenOffice), web browser, etc. can all run under Linux outside the VMs, saving you money.
Et Voila ! You have a way to satisfy their gaming needs, you protect yourself from Windows corruption (whatever the source), and you have a way to run software under Linux and save some bucks there too. And you don't need a separate computer.
First let me give you some background on my technological upbringing.
I was born in 1985. My father was a salesman for Sun, which was still a private company at the time. We got our first PC when I was 2 years old, running MS-DOS with 1MB of memory. As soon as I learned to read, my mother bought me a book on QBASIC and taught it to me during the summer after kindergarten. On my own initiative, I learned a few other languages, namely C. In '99, I got my own computer, running 98SE. A few months later, a friend at the place I volunteer evangelized me with Linux and I immediately set aside half my drive and installed SuSE. Today, I have my entire drive dedicated to LFS.
In retrospect, I never would have had the patience to learn Linux if I hadn't known a programming language. By learning to program, you learn how pieces of the system interact with one another. You learn the concept of directory structure. You learn the boundary between a program and the operating system. You learn why things crash. You learn why programs written for one operating system won't run on another.
So, if you want your kids to adapt to Linux, teach them to program - preferably a compiled language, but even QBASIC is fine. Once they've been programming for a few months, they'll learn all the skills they need in order to adapt to any piece of software you throw at them. They'll understand why you can't run Linux and pop in a Halflife CD and have it run. This, combined with some by-the-book indoctrination into open source, should be all they need.
save $100 off the cost of a win2k license
Dabs.com asks GBP 269.07 (plus carriage) for Windows 2000 and either GBP 163.32 (limited "home" edition) or GBP 231.47 ("professional" edition) for Windows XP. This compares with under GBP 10 for a set of binary CDs from almost any such vendor. The difference is rather more than USD 100. And you'll need to pay this for every PC that may at some time run Windows.
all flash intensive with tons of cool intel/windows only games
Flash works fine with Mozilla 1.2a/1.2b. (It may not work with Mozilla 1.1a.) Java, on the other hand, does not (at least not with Mozilla compiled with GCC 3.0 or later).
When they hit high school, then's where you spring your plan -- by getting them their OWN pcs, older machines running Linux, for school use.
Isn't that a bit late? By then, change may be difficult or impossible once they are indoctrinated into the "Windows way".
Perhaps a better idea would be to seek out and/or create suitable software on GNU/Linux (or, even better, portable to most current platforms). There is a small amount in the Free Software Directory.
I'm not sure of the mathematical words for the proof, but it goes like this:
Hmmm... the ages of the kids can be expressed as x, x+4, and x+8.
For x greater than 3:
x+4 mod 3 = x+1 mod 3
X+8 mod 3 = x+2 mod 3
Clearly, it's impossible for x, x+1, and x+2 to all NOT be divisible by three... The only way that x, x+4, and x+8 can all be prime is when x=3, which is kinda the "trivial" case.
There's no way to avoid hitting a multiple of three somewhere along the way.
Maybe you can set up the Win-box like suggested and then require them to pay for the privilege. Some small token payment of $0.25 per hour may be enough to remind them of the cost just to use windows!
Of course this is all assuming that you wish to drive home the cost/benefit of non-free OSes.
...they're already hooked. I haven't had a windows PC in the house since I acquired stepkids (now ages 6 and 7), and so they didn't learn to expect it. Having once supported Windows computers for a living, I wasn't about to turn a couple of kids loose on one - I simply was not up to the maintenance headaches. With their own UNIX accounts I don't have to worry about them dragging the "windows" directory into the "trash can" or accidentally shutting down or just the general random crashiness of every MS OS I've worked with. They like The Gimp, and TuxPaint; Konqueror is in every way on par with IE these days for their web-surfing pleasure; and KDE is very easy to set up in a pretty, kid-friendly way. They haven't complained yet. If they ever start needing a lot of educational programs that Linux won't run I'll get them an iMac.
--
CPAN rules. - Guido van Rossum
The best computer you can give to your kids is one that powers on, boots, and doesn't do much else. Kids are really, really smart.
I have been using BSD(mostly) and Linux since I was 12. My parents had nothing to do with it. I made the decison on my own that writing code was more important than playing games. I made the decision that science was more important than 'entertainment'. I could do everything /I/ either wanted to or need to. It has been this way for 6 years now. Then again, I am also the only one I know in real life. I have made many (unsucessful) attempts to get my parents to switch, but atleast you have authority over your kids and can make them do what you want. My point is, the age doesn't matter if the interest is there. Kids learn fast anyway.
(I can imagine the day the RIAA puts trojans on audio CDs, just to attack people who try to rip 'em on Windows boxes. We already know they're not "above it" so it's just a question of what their lawyers tell them about possible liability.)
Er, anyway, if you want that "feature" on Linux, at least require that the auto-executed script have a GPG signature on it, hopefully signed by the user or someone the user trusts. Teach the kids Safe Computing.
As for how to implement it, supermount or something. Dunno if that generates an event that you can somehow trap; maybe some script could poll /mnt/cdrom every few seconds or something. (And then, for god's sake, check sigs before you run!)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
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.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
Why do your kids need to be on XP? You even said their games ran fine under '98. Why do they need Office XP to do their homework? If a pc running '98 and Office '97 (or Works for that matter) is capable, then why are you wasting time with XP or Linux? Unless of course you were just looking for an excuse to buy more hardware ('but honey, I have to give the kids our computer to run XP on, we of course will have to get a new one ourselves to replace it since it doesn't make any sense to give the kids the "new" computer.')
Teach your kids how to identify and use the best tool for the job without getting caught up in the technology. I guess when you say you're "cheap" as one of the reasons you want to switch to Linux (even though the intended use doesn't really fit in your case), you mean that your time and your kids time have no value? Oh and in the process you can teach them that time is an asset that you can never get back.
It's important to get the little ones using vi/vim at a young age. :)
Instead of the big brim, it will be a red baseball cap! The mozilla icon will be breathing fire on a city! And the gnomes will be stealing underpants!
Hmmmm, maybe posting this idea isn't such a good idea. Coming next month, Windows K-12!! Clippy now gives your kids advice on drugs, sex, and on how Microsoft has the only real OS (can never start the brain washing too early).
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
I'm rebooting this machine probably four and five times a week
This smacks of an installation problem, or something specific to your hardware. With Windows 2000 and Windows XP I've never had trouble like this. It's rock solid. I'd check all the usual culprits first, like video card drivers.
You might also consider turning off your computer at night and when the kids are at school, etc. With the amount of power a modern PC uses, it's always a win to turn it off when you're not using it for an extended period. (This used to be a point of debate, but no longer.)
Turning a machine off after you have used it? Not to sound too much like a tree hugger, but I dont see why non essential computers are left on 24/7, is 2mins really too long to wait booting up? Even just turning off the machine when you go to bed saves a bit of money/power until the morning. Over time it all adds up. I'm rebooting this machine probably four and five times a week
Laptop Reviews
In order to keep your machine from getting fried, I suggest beefing up your main box, give it a real distro like Debian, get a Psomething from eBay, Install RedHat 8 or Mandrake on it, run VMWare from your main box over X to it, and away you go. VMWare allows you to set partitions in a read-only mode that put your VMbox in pristine condition everytime you boot it up.
Personally, on the topic of OS Politics etc. I think it is important that he uses both Windows and Linux (and I am happy he prefers linux ^_^) and that he'll learn to use the best tool for the job.
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Father: Johnny, I think it's time we had a little talk. I know your friends are talking a lot about new experiences they've had, and you may be having some urges to try them yourself. I just want you to know that it's completely natural and I'll answer any questions you may have.
Johnny: Well Dad... I was thinking... well I was going to... make my system dual-boot.
Father: Listen, I know it's tempting. When I was young that's something everybody did, because we didn't know any better. That was a naive time for the computer literate. People experimented with overclocking and case-modding, back before we knew how destructive it was. Now we have more information about that kind of thing and I don't want you to make the same mistakes I did.
Johnny: Ok Dad, I won't do it. Can I date girls though?
Father: Maybe we should have another talk, about computers and how girls feel about people that use them...
Give them a Apple II, Atari ST, Amiga, or a IBM PS/2 286. Let them do whatever they want with it. Don't help them with anything. Let them buy all the books, periphials, etc they want. eBay will help.
I'd be that's how 75% of Slashdotter's got their start
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.
Amazing magic tricks
Kids software is notoriously incompatible with actual Windows installations. You're as likely to be fighting with it running Windows XP as you are with Lindows!
Nathan.
"www.cartoonnetwork.com is completely incompatible with any non-windows OS"
Mac OS 9 with IE works fine. That's what my kids use on this exact website.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Didn't they already try to do that with their encyclopedia software? ("Encarta?")
:)
I vaguely remember something about the description of the computer mouse as being something MS invented... or something.
Copy the WHOLE CD image to the hard disk. Setup wine...get it working for you first.
Setup the kids accounts with access only to their programs.
Develop a PERL/gtk or some GUI that they could use to launch these and make it consist only of buttons...this could be lessened up for the older ones..
Once they get older, intro them to GNOME or KDE
Doing these things would make things easier. Also, while not in the list, you could rig up cron jobs to check how long they have been on and restrict access to x amount of time per day. This is something that is near impossible on Windows.
Gorkman
Thats what my nephew would have been required to write had he taken AP English. And it had to be in Microsoft Word because the teachers were too dumb or lazy to convert plain text.
I laughed and told him Einstein's theory of relativity would have fit in a smaller paper. But its just bizzarre.
When I was in school in the 70's I just typed double spaced 500 word essays for AP English. If school was really for learning expository writing, you could type term papers in Vi, Emacs, Nedit, or Ed. But no-one cares about content now, they just want fancy looking documents worthy of a marketing dept. (Oh, and put a bunch of fancy clip art and decorations around the paper to get that A+)
My wife run's Linux as well, and althought we don't have kids yet, she still needs those coupel of Windows programs...SO I bought Win4Lin (which is like VMWare, but MUCH cheaper!). I made a link to "virtual windows" on her desktop. She just click it, up loads windows, and it runs whatever Windows software she needs (like The SIMS). Not truly a Linux only solution. You do need a copy of windows (Win98 recommeneded) to install into the VM, but it boots faster than windows does! It's identical to VMWare in almost everywat, except that it's Windows only. Give it a try..much easier that booting into Windows for 1 program...
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
I don't love MS by any means, but I have to say that XP is stable. A pain in the ass sometimes, but stable. If you can deal with the annoyance of "let me do this for you" wizards, just stick with what you've got.
However, it would be nice to run a Linux distro side-by-side with XP and let your kids make up their own minds about which one they want to use.
Ok, this is a rather odd question. If I were you, I wouldn't let my kids use GUIs.
Heres why:
When I was growing up, we had a whole bunch of computers with no games and no GUIs. (I'm 21 for comparison). I liked computers, but if I wanted to play a game, I had to make it. Consequently, I've been programming in various forms ( Basic -> Pascal -> C -> C++ -> ASM) since I was 6. Now I'm in college for electrical engineering, and I can outprogram all of my Computer Science and Computer Engineering friends. Basically, that type of logic is much easier to teach to kids while they're younger. I'd say if you want your kids to become more computer savvy, take away the training wheels, the games, et cetera, and start showing them the most basic programming you can find. Start with basic. Obviously it's a retarded language.....but it just might give your youngins a taste for logic.......
Anyways, I'd say go with the Linux with the youngsters. Just give them a cheap computer without X installed, some quick lessons on programming, and see what they can come up with. You'll be surprised.
Karma: Not Particularly Funny.
When I built my first computer, I dual booted DOS and Linux. My first PPP connection to the Internet was with Linux (of course, I dialed up to shell accounts before that). This being said, it's worth noting that at the time there was no good desktop alternative (Win2.x and 3.x was crap) for the x86 platform.
As times changed Microsoft caught up and won. I think WinXP Home is a great home platform for x86, or Mac OS 10.2 if you have money to get a new machine.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Linux is not ready for beginners yet. It's not even ready for so-called "power users" (which is apparently what you call people who know how to get to the Control Panel in Windows). Hell, I won't even use Linux full-time; I'm far more productive in Windows despite being proficient in both operating systems.
If you force your kids to use Linux, you'll get one of two possible results. The best possible result is that your kids love trying new things and don't mind a long, frustrating learning curve, and will become geeks extraordinaire. The worst possible result is that your kids will take one look at the thing, say "What the crap is this? Where's the Start menu?" and go over to a friend's house to use their "normal" Windows box.
An OS is like a religion in more ways than one. You can force one on your children, but chances are 50/50 that they'll grow to hate it. Let your kids use the OS they're comfortable with, and maybe install a nice friendly Linux distro on another box and encourage them to play around with it. Maybe you can gradually wean them off Windows, but you certainly shouldn't force them or you risk putting them off computers permanently.
Well... your kinda stuck.
Director isn't on Linux at this time, so it's ether Mac or Windows. And Mac needs different hardware.
You're running XP. Simply put, XP is 2000 with Xtra Problems. More bugs, more hassles. Downgrade. It's the same NT kernel you know and love, but it's very stable IMHO.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
I've got several computers at home and I too am cheap. Since I didn't want to pay MS a bunch 'o' money for licenses, and I won't steal software - Open Source is my friend!
The first conversion was when my wife and I married. She had used Windows for quite a while and was a little hesitant to make the move to Linux. When I set up a machine for her - Gnome/Star Office/Netscape - she said - "This looks like Windows to me..." She hasn't turned back. My wife is cool!
My 12 yr old niece visited last summer. I asked her if she wanted to chat with her friends on AIM. She enthusiastically said "YES!" I downloaded a new version of GAIM, installed it, and began with the "this is not Windows, but it looks similar" speech. She sat down, changed her default typeface and colors, added her friends to her buddy list and started chatting with her friends. I left the room. She simply did not need my help.
There have been a few things over the years that have not worked well, and some things that we have not yet been able to completely resolve, but that is true of _any_ OS.
Things that don't work well:
1. Clip art - MS does a great job of making clip art easy to find and use in their products. Other companies market clip art, but I have yet to find a clip art collection that is indexed well and easy to use on Linux. I can install clip art on my redhat box, but it's just not as easy as Windows.
2. Fonts - Again, MS makes typeface selection easy. This is _much_better today than it was just a few years ago, but still not quite as easy as Windows. I won't steal fonts either, so font conversion is sometimes an issue when receiving documents or printing them.
3. Games - We don't play many games, but my wife has found a large number of websites with flash-based games that work fine under Linux (Mozilla/Galeon with the flash5 plugin) - She has also found a number of kid-friendly websites that are compatible with Linux. I've got a friend who is on the development team for SOF2. He sent me a copy. I see that it is listed as an application that works under WINE, but I had a problem with the WINE build on Mandrake 8.2. I spent a little time trying to troubleshoot this, but quickly got bored with it and gave up. I booted under '98SE and played.
4. Printing - Two components here: Installation of new hardware, and troubleshooting active print jobs.
4.1 The installation component gets better every year, ghostscript does a decent job translating so that non-PS printers work pretty well, but the management tools (print head cleaners, diagnostic utils) don't work under Linux at all. (Well, to be honest, I haven't tried to get the Windows S/W to work on Linux.)
4.2 Troubleshooting - While Windows does provide a GUI to show the state of jobs in the queue, it too is difficult to troubleshoot. Ask a windows helpdesk tech how often the complain is "I can't print." This has room for improvement on Linux.
5. My digital camera sometimes loses connection to my Linux box. I've found that unloading and reloading the usb kernel module fixes this. I'm unwilling to document/teach my wife how to do this. She could easily learn it, but it's too much hassle for her.
Things that don't work:
1. Online transactions with my bank. My bank does not support any browser other than IE. Additionally, I am unaware of software for Linux that will allow me to download transactions from my bank and transfer money between accounts. I have a copy of VMWare and MS Money that solve this problem, but I'd like to find an open source tool to do this for me.
2. Media content - Between quicktime and MS media solutions being absent on Linux, this is a gap that we have worked around. There's little content of this type that interests my wife, so we've been able to ignore this failing up to now. Real works on Linux and mostly meets our needs based on the occasional use. If there's some content that my wife _really_ wants to see, I can bring home a notebook running XP. Yes, the crossover plugin exists: $25 per machine, and won't be able to support "recent" versions of Windows Media Player.
3. My parallel port scanner - There are no drivers for my old, cheap scanner to allow SANE to consider it a data source. I need to boot Windows to use this device. A hassle, but not a major one since we don't scan all that often. I'm in the market for a cheap, decent scanner. Unfortunately since I strongly avoid products manufactured in China, this limits my options significantly.
<soapbox> China's human rights record is abysmal, and there's no such thing as freedom of religion there. You can be imprisoned for as long as three years without due process, and I know of a woman who is serving two years in a labor camp - convicted of believing in God. </soapbox>
I've been almost MS free (most of my PCs have no MS software on them) for the last five years, and it has been worth it. I have saved a fortune on software licenses, and have been able to keep using very old hardware because I have not needed to upgrade - I can easily turn off services that are not needed. I'm using a P133 as a firewall, and another as a file/print/cron server - and the two Athlon 750's make great desktop workstations. This has saved me $$ on hardware, too.
Based on the good experiences that I've had, I'm planning to help introduce more and more Linux solutions to my company. Linux is great!
Regards,
Anomaly
PS - God loves you and longs for relationship with you. If you want to know more about this, please email me
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
I have two kids. My four year old has her own PC for games. But most of the time she wants to sit with me and watch what I am doing on my machine. When she does, I try to explain how it works.
Kids are very inquisitive. Just having the Linux machine around, and working it yourself will bring out the curiocity in them. They will gravitate to it in their own time simply because "Daddy is using it".
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
Although XP may be better from a technical standpoint, the license agreement that comes with it is horrifying. I recently bought a laptop with XP (which I absolutely didn't want), and I decided to boot it up. I was presented with the EULA. It said, among other things, that Microsoft is allowed to collect any information about you with or without your knowledge (think spyware) and sell it to 3rd parties. It also said that they and certain other companies (acting under MS's DRM) can install software and delete files from your system, again, with or without your knowledge. You are also required to register the machine online or the OS will stop working after 30 days. If you change your hardware or re-install the OS, you have to re-register. You are only allowed to re-register something like 10 times before you're required to buy another copy (at $300 a pop). And all this was just in the first 20% or so of the agreement. I didn't have the stomach to read the rest of it, so I blew away the partition and installed Linux.
The point is that if you click "I agree", you're saying that it's okay for anyone to walk all over you, Microsoft or otherwise. That's just not something I could ever agree to. The scary part is that most people don't even read the EULA.
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
There's a lot of different people here on slashdot. Many are just "me-too"-ers that rant and rave about MS for karma. A lot of FUD gets aimed. I've done it myself, sorry.
However, there are a lot of reasons to hate Microsoft. They've done a lot of bad things and deserve a lot of the negative feelings they get. As far as being unstable, the drivers are still buggy in XP for me, it doesn't like my modern system and still crashes. Maybe it is my hardware, but Mandrake is near perfect. *shrug.*
Ignore the bots. A lot of people in the OSS community don't care too much about Microsoft anyways, they just want good software.
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
A friend of mine had an accident which is a perfect answer to your question. His car fell into a reservoir. Water pressure from the outside was so strong he couldn't open the door. The water shorted his electric system and the windows stopped working.
He's a lucky guy. The water was shallow enough, so his car hit bottom before he drowned. Eventually, someone came and broke one of his windows with a stone.
Power windows are just like GUIs. People who have them feel superior to people who don't have them. But GUIs, just like power windows, stop working in conditions where hand cranks and consoles may save your life.
The fact is that your kids are far more adaptable than you are, and will have far less problems making the transition. As far as technical advice on how to do it, here are my suggestions:
WINE: If all of your kids games ran fine on Win98, dedicate a Gig or so to a Win98 install to point WINE at, that should take care of most of the compatability issues. The last time I set up WINE it gave me the option to make copies of the important Windows bits for its own use, that way you don't have to worry about your Windows install being corrupted by anything other than itself. A single Windows install, accesible over a network should be sufficient for anyones WINE needs.
CDs: The real problem here is autorun, which Linux basically doesn't do, and for very good reasons (there may be a way to make it work, but I'm unaware of it). However, it's not that difficult to make an icon that will automount the CD and run the app. If your 3 year old can play the game at all, then s/he can learn to click on an icon. A clean dismount at the end could be problematic, though.
Lock-ups: My personal experience has been that if you use one of the "bulkier" GUIs (like KDE), you will not get more effective stability than you currently have with Windows. I recommend something lightweight. Not only is, say, WindowMaker a lot more stable than KDE, it's also a lot simpler. It might be radically different from the Windows interface, but that may be a good thing. I switched from KDE to WindowMaker a few months ago, and I've found that with proper attention to setup, the easy things (launching Mozilla, OpenOffice, or whatever) can be made incredibly easy, and the really hard things are still possible via easy access to XTerm. Any Linux graphical environment will offer that kind of flexibility, and KDE and GNOME apps will still run just fine if you aren't actively running their prefered envirnment, so long as you have it installed.
Also, no OS will make you safe from 3-year-old caused lockups. If there is any way for you to, say, open another terminal and recover from a command line, your 3-year-old will discover it and lock that up, too. This is just a fact of life that you'll have to learn to live with, at least until the kid gets older and learns not to thrash about on the keyboard.
And finally, my response to all the social conformity advocates telling you to stick with Windows: Would you be as critical if he were swithing to a Mac? Why should switching to Linux be viewed any differently?
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Seriously. It'd be like being a kid with parents don't believe in sugar. Do the little tikes really need to be indoctrinated so soon?
The perfect kid rig is the newest version of IE, newest version of every macromedia plug-in and a tray full of closed source IM clients. Anything else is losing functionality.
Don't worry, they're just about old enough to start their first warez server and we all know the dirty open source road that leads down.
Ok, call me crazy here. Heck, call me eccentric if it makes you feel better. But I don't believe a computer is a good medium on which to give a child games to play.
Consoles are infinitely better for game playing. There are no IRQ conflicts, or resolution errors, or sound card inquiry mishaps. If you own a GameCube, and you buy a GameCube game it typically works, period.
A computer, IMHO, is for work. Writing reports and documentation. Setting up internal PBX systems. Placing more cannon fodder in the path for the OS religious.
With consoles having more and more power with each revision, many are not far behind stand alone PC systems anyway. Also, with systems like the Xbox which are fundamentally a computer system in a box regulated to a specific duty, great amounts of "Only a computer can hope to push the graphics for this copy of 'Quaking under my Halo while my Doomed Sole of Unreal Boots Made for Walking in the Sunshine Part 700'" are being ported to the consoles with the same amount of gameplay as their PC counterparts.
Personally, call me an old fuddy duddy, but I don't think I have a single game installed on any computer I own currently. I do however own a GameCube, Xbox, and PlayStation 2 to get my gaming fix.
Kids really appreciate the "drop it in, push the button, play the game" aspect of consoles as well. If you want your kids to learn Linux. Then give them Linux, and don't worry about any of the games. Just place a console next to it and let them have Mario.
As always, this is just my two cents. No one who knows me is likely to agree with me.
"Genius may shine aloof and alone, like a star, but goodness is social, and it takes two men and God to make a Brother."
To add a bit more to my post-Microsoft's products make it very easy for the user to do very, very stupid things to their pc's. They also have 95% of all the computer idiots out there running their windows...which again contributes to it looking like microsoft's fault.
Not that linux doesn't let you screw stuff up royally, but you have to have a bit of an idea of what you are doing to get started, which cuts off a lot of the really silly users, and if something is wrong in Linux it's easy enough to get through the abstraction and fix the problem, if you know how. Sometimes in Windows things are just broken...and you just reinstall everything to fix it. *shrug*.
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
That compatibility switch has done exactly jack for me the times I've tried it. Maybe this guy had the same experience.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
Son, I believe that all people were created equal, that no one should be hurt because they believe a certain thing, or are a certain color, and that people have the right to be free to do and act as they please as long as they dont' hurt other people. But these are just my opinions, form your own as you wish.
The above is ridiculous.
You gotta tell your kids about what is right and wrong. Sometimes that includes religion. Teach kids what is right. If your son or daughter decides to grow up and be a neo-nazi l33t script kiddy gay hacker windows user, or whatever and you don't agree with one of those positions, you still gotta love them. You let them make their decisions - because he or she is an adult and they make their own choices.
You're free to try to convince them otherwise, so long as you don't force it on them.
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
If he starts his kids using linux, this is what his family portraits will look like!
The Linux Bunch
I saw an earlier post for linuxforkids, but I thought gcompris deserved it's own mention even though it is on the linuxforkids.org site. Gcompris is a nice suite of educational games for Linux. All GPL of course.
Bammkkkk
www.sguil.net
The Analyst Console for NSM
I'd like to know why it is you think moving to Linux is such a good idea when it seems that you're incapeable of administering a Windows XP box. And I quote...
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.
I don't mean for this to be flamebait, but a good Win XP setup does not crash 5 times a week. There are really two likely scenarios: one is that you have a faulty driver for some of your hardware, the other, and perhaps more likely, is that you have software written for Win 98 that is trying to force itself into parts of the OS where it doesn't belong. Do yourself a favor, decide between 98 and XP and do a clean install of one or the other, then be very selective about what you install and allow your kids to run.
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?
No. Let me elaborate: No. If you want to run Windows CD ROM games, and a slew of other Windows programs then just run Windows. If you want to start introducing them to other less expensive alternatives, try Open Office, Mozilla, GNU Chess/Winboard, and others of the like. Then be prepared to deal with the complaints that at school they have Office XP and MS Word has features A, B, C and D, and why don't we? As they show an interest, get them their own PC and let them have at it.
bance.net
Blender is a good one too. It takes a long time to learn though, we had play some reverse psychology to get her hooked.
"This one's for professionals honey, I don't think you're old enough yet."
The absolute best one: "Girls aren't good at this stuff". Boy did that set her on fire!
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
if YOU want to move to linux on YOUR computer and let THEM use it go ahead. If they DEMAND their windows games then just say 'sorry, this new machine won't run them anymore, here's some different ones if you want to play games. You are the parent and as such make the primary rules of reality for them, if you let them make the rules for you it's not worth it being a parent, is it?
Are you really asking a tech question or a social question? I'm reading both here. As to wine, etc, never use it, if I wanted to use windows apps I'd use windows, and no need so I don't. Same with games, big ole waste of time my opinion. Linux has some games near as I can tell, there appears to be some loaded here on this default redhat install I did, only even looked at one of them though, this "tux racer" but then I turned it off. Unlike most guys here I think they suck, but that's just my opinion, doesn't amount to anything. I'd rather build something, or if it was kids, give them real tools instead of playing games on the pooter.
Guess what I'm saying is don't let your kids buffalo you into something you don't want. Also not saying be a tyrant either, but you are the adult and parent, some decisions are your's to make, when they get older if they really want to run something else they'll come up with a way to make it happen, and it'll be at their knowledge level, interest level and skill level, ie, they'll scrounge their own box and goferit. That way it automagically gets done for you, you aren't the bad guy to them, and you eliminate a lot of current headaches and schisms.
I'm doing the same thing. My kids share a win98 box right now and I'm going to build my son a linux box since they are both nuts over frozen bubbles and tend to tie up my laptop to play it. I read somewhere that you can download a linux version of Quake III Arena for free if you have purchased a Windows version. Do any of you know if this is true and if it is, where can I get it? They love playing Q3a and right now we only have two boxes to play from. They want to gang up on their dad.
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof for this, but this post is too small to contain it:-(
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
1. You get 100% compatibility when you need it.
2. You'll reduce the backlash by not forcing an OS that might not do everything THEY want it to do.
3. It's the perfect way to demonstrate, "Windows is Linux's bitch."
4. Giving enough HD space available, you could give each of them thier own Virtual Machine that they can trash with all the unsafe software they want.
5. Virtual Machines rule!!!
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
Just run Windows under VM-Ware
That way, they can use whatever they want without having to boot back and forth.
It's also the perfect way of saying, "Windows is my bitch."
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
That is the way. Never take away functionality before you have replaced it. Web browsing works better under Linux now than it does under Windows so you can kill that first. Games and all that can stay with the old doze machine, but you would be amazed at how much more stable windoze is when you don't let it see the internet. Rebuild the old box one more time and then let it die as it will. Then you can take your time learning how to do things in Linux like singing dancing and games.
This is how I got myself and my wife off Windoze. We have one windoze computer left and it's blind to the netword. We boot it every now and then to write CDs. We don't miss it, and it's lasted longer than any other windoze PC I've ever built. When we install something and that program breaks another, the blame is clear cut. My computers are stable and do the things we want. You don't need M$ only services.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
- http://www.ofset.org/gcompris/index.html
There are probably other projects well worth investigating."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.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
I have two little girls, 7 and 4. They use both Linux and Windows, and now I think it is time to teach them (well, at least the older) some programming skills. Logo was the first thing that came to mind, but hey, it's not for the real world! I would like to ask to my fellow /.ers: what language should she learn?. Should it be Java or C++? Maybe Perl or PHP?
If you can read this, thank an english teacher.
If you want you kids to learn how to use any OS and/or PC hardware, here is what you do:
1) Show them the latest and greatest games, apps or chat-programs, etc.
2) Let them use it for few days.
3) Erase the OS and dismantle the computer in front of their teary eyes.
4) Tell them if they can't use it until they put it back together and re-install the OS.*Tough Love*
Nowadays used PC parts are so cheap who cares if the hard drive falls down the stairs or a if mouse is destroyed.
people always ask me how i know so much about computers and OS's. My answer is simple, GAMES. How else would I have ever figured out TCP, IPX, OPEN GL, video card secrets and what the heck DMA is for.
You don't need winex for most flash games. You should be able to write a tiny little script that searches for the flash file an opens it in Mozilla.
I was doing QA on some flash games for a while, and it was really neat to see how cross-platform compatible they were. There were zero platform dependent bugs. (Plenty of bugs overall. I work for crappy companies only. It's in the objective on my resume, apparently.)
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
First of all, I must say congrats. It's a bold move, really, and it won't be without hardship. Still, moving the "future of the nation" onto an open source platform really is a good idea, in my opinion, however, if cost is really your only reason, I'm a little reserved in that they're just going to think of you as a "cheapskate", too cheap to buy a real operating system.
As for the hardships, the only thing that I can really tell you is to try and dual boot both for a while. See what will work for them, and what won't. Make sure that you're not doing anything more to them than inconveniencing them. If there are things that they NEED but won't work on Linux, then wait. I'm sure they'll get it soon enough (or there's always the idea of you developing it for them, assuming adequate know-how).
Try and slowly migrate them to Linux, if possible, and make sure that you know how to fix anything they might be able to break. Linux isn't any good if you've got a flock of users doing their best to break it, and you can't undo their mistakes. Again assuming proper know-how, try not to just throw them into it.
Lucky for me, I got into Linux shortly before my daughter was born (she's just now 1 year old, as of 11/11), and plan to bring her up in a completely open source home. We've also seriously cut back on our TV watching and movie-going, and looked for more (in my opinion hippie-esque) traditional methods of entertainment and learning, including yearly museum memberships and the like. Anyway, I'm rambling now, but long story short, I think it's a noble thing you're doing, and I wish you the best.
-9mm-
I consistently find myself wishing I had some other computer monkeys to help me with some of the menial tasks that my work requires .. .the "making license plates" that does so little for me.
.gotta run . .. need to go explain NURBS curves to the 3 year old . . .they grow up so fast . . .*SNIFFLE*
Thankfully, I have a very impregnable wife - she's cranked out two little computer monkeys for me so far - they're 3 and 1, and I figure that within a year or so, I can have them building 3D objects for me, doing the random photoshop cleanup to my texture maps, and generally taking workload off of me so I can spend more of my workday doing what God intended people to do during the workday - play games!!
Oops .
anything i tell you will cloud your opinion.
In my experience, very young people typically have few problems learning to use Linux, because they often aren't accustomed to using something else.
I didn't really start using a computer until my freshman year at college; I started out using Windows 98. The following summer I installed Red Hat 6.2, and I ended up using it full time w/few complaints. Interestingly, all my friends who thought the change was "pretty hardcore" had all grown up using Windows. Since I had really nothing to switch from, the transition was pretty easy.
Since your children are all relatively young, I don't imagine Windows is the only language they'll ever be able to speak, so by all means let them use Linux while it's easy for them. If you want them to play their old games, then run a dual-boot until they outgrow that software, and just stop buying new versions of Windows!
It's just something that you have to be prepared for, if you go down this path.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
I would like to move them off Windows XP and introduce them to something less expensive (free)
You make your children pay for the OS?
Most people are so used to crappy software, it's really sad. If a user-space program can crash your operating system, don't blame the program. That's an OS bug. The program may even be totally programtically correct. For instance, printing a tab folloed by two backspaces and another chracter at the beginning of a DOS emulation window will kill all of the WinNT family. XP reboots, the others BSOD If a program crashes itself, that's a program bug. If the program can do anything it's not supposed to do, that's an OS bug.
Copyright Violation:"theft, piracy"::Anti-Trust Violation:"thermonuclear price terrorism"<-Overly dramatic language.
There has to be something seriously wrong with your machine. I have 4 XP machines at home. The one I use almost every day I have rebooted for... well I can't really remember the last time but it had to be more than a month or two ago. The computer my kids and wife use the most gets rebooted maybe once a month. I would seriously look at your setup if you have to reboot multiple times a week.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
GAHAHAHH!!!
wrong thread. I wish I could mod myself down before somebody else gives me a -1 : WTF?
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
XP has a feature that is supposed to emulate the older versions of windows for backward compatibility. Just right click on the icon, select properties, compatibilty, select "run in compatibility mode" and check off 95 (or whatever).
You can also enable this emulation on 2000.
I'm not sure which is funnier - the troll of an original question ("I want Windows, only not") or the volley of "Keep using Windows" advice that followed.
You want to know why MS has a monopoly? You want to know why Linux isn't ready for primetime? Go back and read over the responses here. Even the most gung-ho Linux responses amounted to "This will be broken, these other things will require a lot of fiddling, some things may work, more or less, out of the box, and your children will be social outcasts because they don't use the same OS as everyone else."
Maybe our next milestone should be to make Linux kid friendly, where "kid" is NOT someone capable of recompiling and tweaking source code. A free alternative is a lot less compelling when it doesn't work as well as the paid options, and technical superiority amounts to a hill of beans when Linux is a painful experience for normal families.
Meanwhile, chalk me up on the "Keep using Windows" side. It's not exactly a case of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," but Windows is probably less broken than Linux in this situation.
MC
... make sure you do it right.
"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."
I'd guess the games you're having problems with are DOS-based games (I haven't run into any issues with any pre-XP 9x-native games on XP, and if I did I do know how to turn on the 9x emulation in XP). The reason you're having issues with DOS games is because, unlike 9x, there is no DOS (only Zuul).
So what makes you think that things are going to be so much better on Linux? DOSemu is itself just a DOS emulator (like XP's CLI) with the disadvantage of the coders not having access to the original MS-DOS sourcecode. There's FreeDOS that tries very hard to be MS-DOS with some success, but it's still not MS-DOS. If you're trying to run, say, the original Warcraft II, I'd say you'd have more problems trying to run it under Linux, not less. And you'd also be then emulating Windows software as well as DOS. DOSemu and WINE work best when they have "real" DOS and Windows installations to work with, so you'll still probably end up having at least two OSes on your HDD. You'd probably be better off just dual-booting between XP and some flavor of DOS (98, Me... hell, I think IBM still sells PC-DOS 7.0/2000).
If you want to switch your kids over to Linux because you're a GPL zealot (Microsoft BAD, beer GOOD), just admit it to yourself and the rest of the world. Don't try to dig for complaints that are baseless, they just give you and the rest of the GPL crowd a bad name.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...and considered the whys and why-nots extensively.
Why? Basically for one, and only one reason: Easier to administer on MY end. I can create a user account for them and then they can bang on the box all day long without me worrying about them fucking something up. The most they could mess with is stuff in ${HOME}. Not like they have a whole lot of critical data at age 8.
Why not? Games. Because honestly, at the age that my kids are at, that is pretty much what they use the computer(s) for. Will most of those games run under Wine? Yeah, probably. But that is going to be a real pain in the arse, and my one and only heading under Why is for ease of administration. And when you start mucking with Wine, that goes out the window (no pun intended). Not to mention that games don't autorun (as mentioned previously), and in general things just won't work like they are used to.
So, my next option is to just create a Ghost image with a minimal win98 install, some of thier favorite games pre-installed, and just re-image every few months when they screw up the system so much that it won't boot properly.
And don't give them write access to the pr0n directory on the fileserver. That's an important part.
GIR: I'm going to sing the Doom song now. Doom doom doom doom doom doom de-doom doom doom doom doom doom doom...
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.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Here are the current statistics for the Flash Player adoption for each version: http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/f lashplayer/version_penetration.html. Flash 5 is about 92% and Flash 6 is about 53%.
cpeterso
Technically, I would repartition, keep a dual boot for a while, and start buying games for Linux. This will help them have a smooth transition. You can read a lot about the cons in other posts, but to me the big picture is: your kids can do their stuff in Linux. They just won't be able to use every possible game. But then again, if they are hardcore gamers, maybe a games console will do the job. For most other tasks, you should be golden with linux. And the legaci win* partition will help you in the few remaining cases. And by buying Linux stuff you will help it become more popular and in the end your family will be making a difference.
they USED to run just fine under Windows98
So run Windows98.
Also, if XP isn't stable, there's something else wrong. I'm running two XP installs, and my wife/kids 10/5 yr old) run Windows 2000 (my headless servers are all Linux).
In my experience, when the kids Win98 / Win2000 boxes get flaky, it's because they've been loading all kinds of crap from Cartoon Network or wherever. Spy Kids goofy crap that has mechanical bugs creeping out from under windows, crazy screensavers, spyware, you name it. If I clear that crap off the machine gets stable again.
I did have to tell the kids "Sorry, that game just isn't going to run anymore" for a few games that they used to play under Win98, when we moved to W2K.
I wouldn't mind moving them to Linux either, but I realized that I'd spend all my time getting Linux to emulate Windows, and that seems kind of silly; they're already running Windows, Linux + Wine isn't going to be any more stable than Windows 2000, which I've seen make 3 month uptimes before. Why should I put a bunch of my time into building them a system that, with a lot of work, they'll be able to use almost as well as what they already have?
Kid friendly software is not a "straw man." It's just that adults misunderstand what a kid needs to learn software.
It's not big, pleasant buttons that make a software package kid friendly. It's familiar terms and words. When a kid wants to write a book report on dolphins, it does no good to present them with the option to create a new template, "legal preceding" or fax. When they want to see what something looks like, offering them an outline or master view doesn't help them. Furthermore, children think VERY linearly...programs that reformat their work based on paragraph settings after they've already typed it and tried to change the stats further down the page are just confusing.
Incidentally, these are all signs of bad programs for adults, too.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Two words: child abuse.
Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
You might also like Tux Paint. It's being developed specifically for young kids. :^)
Something else is wrong if you're rebooting 4 or 5 times a week.
Why does the article's author feel the need to leave his home computers on 24x7? Don't his children ever sleep? Save yourself some power and some hassle, and power them down every night when the machines are not being used. Even Windows XP can stay up a whole day.
No, He's saying Linux beta quality is generally better than windows release quality. I know this sounds like a standard slap at Microsoft, and I guess it is, but I've found it to usually be true as well.
FERMAT STRIKES AGAIN (Moderators: please note the PP has *quoted* Fermat's margin note from where he postulates his last theorum)
-----
For great justice!
every time you press Search in Explorer
that Fear enough for you?
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
"...learning how to type using emacs."
The next think you know the kids will be fighting...
"vi!"
"Emacs!"
"vi!"
In my opinion, forcing them onto Linux is just the wrong way to go. You need to keep them open to Windows and Linux.
/. parentals have been doing things like taking away internet if they boot windoze. Let the kids use Windows for now, because we all know that they have no use nor the care about the litlle insignificant problems that are in Windows.
I think its amazing that some
Their kids, so you should let them be kids.
Slash-for-Thought
I suspect my story is the same as many others here. My Windows PC has alot of good educational software and games available for my daughter and does an okay job. But I use and prefer Linux for just about everything else. So when I started looking for alternatives in Linux for my daughter's usage, I found the selection quiet lacking in comparison. Futhermore, as I researched more on the Internet, I found posts from people asking the same questions several years back. It really looks like very little progress has been made. The same questions keep resurfacing. So I hope that the Kid's Linux web site becomes a repository for knowledge gained by the community.
If you check out the site, please do not be disappointed by the lack of content. I'm just getting started really. As time progresses and more members of the community get involved and make suggestions, I think that we will have a nice little site.
My 11yr old son has never used Windoze at home (I stopped using M$ products
back in the era of Win 3.0.)
Executive Summary:
* CD-ROM Games - forget it. There are home-grown games
but they are rarely of commercial quality. WINE doesn't
do DirectX - so unless you are prepared to pay for WINE-X
you can't play Windoze games - period. Even Wine-X won't
play more than a handful of Windoze games well.
* Online Games/Flash/Shockwave - no problem. Use Mozilla.
* For *everything* else - Linux is better than Windoze..and
it happens to be free.
Conclusion:
Buy them a GameCube for games - keep the PC for serious
stuff. I don't think that's a bad idea anyway - while they
are doing homework, there is no temptation to take time out
for a game - and that's "A Good Thing".
www.sjbaker.org
... that she forced her kid to play games on a linux box.
Live web cams
There's nothing to be afraid of. Our family does not have a copy of Windows running anywhere in the house.
We have a Linksys cable/firewall/wireless access point box, and three machines (or so) with ethernet adapters, all running Debian GNU/Linux.
The server is an old Celeron machine with 256 megs of RAM and an 80 gig drive, and a small old monitor that stays off most of the time. It has a big shared area on its disk, made available to all machines on the network via NFS, for "homework" and personal folders for all members of the family, as well as shared music and photo subdirectories. The server also runs a printer that's shared over the network via CUPS. The server runs Debian "stable" and has been, well, ultra stable.
Each of the workstations mount the server's NFS under a local directory called "server", and treats it as if it were the workstation's own local directory. The word processing software on each workstation (OpenOffice) is set up to point to the appropriate subdir on the server as its default directory. So, everyone's work files reside on the server, where they can be taken care of and backed up.
The workstations are more powerful Athlon and Duron machines, and run the Debian "testing" and "unstable" variants ("unstable" is in fact reasonably stable).
This system does not have all the latest games, but it has a lot of entertaining stuff (esp. from the Debian Jr. project), and it is more than adequate to handle all school-level computing tasks.
Snazzier peripherals like a scanner, CD Writer and Digital Camera are attached to the workstations.
You can click here to see our setup.
Sweet, a copy of the EULA. Let me see if I can point out the parts I was referring to.
* Consent to Use of Data. You agree that MS and Microsoft Corporation and their affiliates may collect and use technical information gathered in any manner as part of the product support services provided to you, if any, related to the SOFTWARE. MS, Microsoft Corporation and their affiliates may use this information solely to improve products or to provide customized services or technologies to you. MS, Microsoft Corporation and their affiliates may disclose this information to others, but not in a form that personally identifies you.
Summary: You allow Microsoft to use spyware, etc, to collect information on you and sell it to their affiliates.
* Security Updates. Content providers are using the digital rights management technology ("Microsoft DRM") contained in this SOFTWARE to protect the integrity of their content ("Secure Content") so that their intellectual property, including copyright, in such content is not misappropriated. Owners of such Secure Content ("Secure Content Owners") may, from time to time, request MS, Microsoft Corporation or their subsidiaries to provide security related updates to the Microsoft DRM components of the SOFTWARE ("Security Updates") that may affect your ability to copy, display and/or play Secure Content through Microsoft software or third party applications that utilize Microsoft DRM.
Summary: Microsoft or their subsidaries can install updates to the DRM software on your computer to remove your ability to view/listen to certain content. I guess it doesn't say anything about deleting files, but then again, that could be a way to keep you from viewing/listening to them!
* Internet-Based Services Components. The SOFTWARE contains components that enable and facilitate the use of certain Internet-based services. You acknowledge and agree that MS, Microsoft Corporation or their subsidiaries may automatically check the version of the SOFTWARE and/or its components that you are utilizing and may provide upgrades or supplements to the SOFTWARE that may be automatically downloaded to your COMPUTER.
Summary: Microsoft may install software on your computer without your acceptance for any purpose.
* Mandatory Activation. THIS SOFTWARE CONTAINS TECHNOLOGICAL MEASURES THAT ARE DESIGNED TO PREVENT UNLICENSED OR ILLEGAL USE OF THE SOFTWARE. The license rights granted under this EULA are limited to the first thirty (30) days after you first run the SOFTWARE unless you supply information required to activate your licensed copy in the manner described during the setup sequence (unless Manufacturer has activated for you). You can activate the SOFTWARE through the use of the Internet or telephone; toll charges may apply. You may also need to reactivate the SOFTWARE if you modify your HARDWARE or alter the SOFTWARE.
Summary: You must register within 30 days, or your copy of XP will cease to function. You may need to re-register if change your hardware or software. Also, although not mentioned in the EULA, a quick search reveals sites like http://www.j-walk.com/ss/excel/activation.htm that say Microsoft will activate a product no more than 8 times.
So, do you still consider my post FUD?
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
If you don't want your kids to do it - don't do it yourself!
My daughter won't see Windows of me using it either.
I use Linux all the way through and I won't have no steenkin doze on my boxes.
She'll get a KDE 3 Box with a nifty KDE 3 Liquid theme in screeching pink when she's old enough for a box.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
You may permit a maximum of five (5) ("Connection Maximum") computers or other electronic devices (each a "Device") to connect to the COMPUTER to utilize the services of the SOFTWARE solely for File and Print services, Internet Information services, and remote access (including connection sharing and telephony services). The five (5) Connection Maximum includes any indirect connections made through "multiplexing" or other software or hardware which pools or aggregates connections. Except as otherwise permitted below, you may not use the Device to use, access, display or run the SOFTWARE, the SOFTWARE's User Interface or other executable software residing on the COMPUTER.
Translation: you can't run any sort of service not listed (including hosting games, IRC servers, Gnutella/Kazaa servers or the like), you can't have more than five computers using serivces on your computer at once (could easily be exceeded e.g. in a college situation, if your web site gets slashdotted, or when you provide multiple services), and you can't run remote administration software to use the computer remotely. This clause prohibits a lot of useful functionality in Windows.
The OS doesn't matter. You say that your kids want to play games, write homework or papers, perhaps do some communication on the Internet.
Give your children the computer of your choice that fits their needs. And make sure that they don't get sucked into "learning by interface", what I mean by this is that they learn to look INTO things and won't freak out if they use a different word processor sometime just because the menu is laid out differently.
It makes no sense to teach your children an OS. If they get interested in the guts of computers, they'll figure out OSes and such themselves, and you as a technically savvy person can assist them with their learning. But it does make sense to let them know that a computer can do a lot of different things, and the same thing in different ways, and that alternatives are always available. Let them know that they are not typing a letter "with the computer", but with Microsoft Word, and that there are other programs available. They will understand the concept of programs and operating systems after a while, will perhaps look into Linux and understand the real-world differences (price, origin, etc) of the products.
If they don't, who cares, because they have learned to adapt to different environments, know that a computer is an extremely flexible tool. They don't have to be computer experts.
When they have learned to be flexible, they won't ever be among those that are afraid of Linux just because it works different. Balancing the advantages and disadvantages of the many systems available, they will come to a conclusion of what system and programs to use. This may or may not be Linux. Doesn't matter.
When your children are intelligent, thinking, flexible persons that look behind things and don't take things for the be-all and end-all just because they don't know something else, you as a father have succeeded.
This coming from an 18 year old might be ridiculous, but I feel that it is a valid point of view.
What you really need is a reason for them to switch. If they want to switch they will accept many inconveniences, whereas if you force them they will hate GNU/Linux from the start.
So you should set-up a dual boot system and allow them to choose what they want to run. Then, you turn off your sense of compassion and install... xkobo(-deluxe) and every other addictive game you can find. The first shot is always free, but this time so will be the next one, and the next one, and the next...
And when they're running GNU/Linux anyway, because they need their daily gaming fix, they'll start using it for other stuff as well: why reboot when there's no reason?
P.S. You might want to rephrase this argument when presenting it to your wife.
P.P.S. I've got several friends who want to install GNU/Linux after playing xkobo at my place. }:-)
If there is hope, it lies in the trolls.
Incidentally, these are all signs of bad programs for adults, too.
Which is exactly why I say "kid friendly" is a straw man. Designing a good interface for a kid really just means designing a good interface for a human, with the erroniously added requirement for cartoonish graphics.
children think VERY linearly
Regular conversations with my 2 year old daughter have convinced me otherwise. Linear thinking is learned behavior, and a little casual people watching at the local strip mall should be enough to convince you that not everyone learns it. Even something as simple as cause and effect is learned, and often has to be pointed out.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
"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."
*Gasp*! It can't be! Humanity has finally realized this fact!!
Submitted for your inspection: Lousy hand-eye coordination and I suck at math. Always have, probably always will. However, I'm musical. I've been composing now (standard notation using various software) for 11 years and I'm not too bad. I can play the guitar (as well as anyone with my poor motor skills can manage, anyway), and I have Grade VIII music theory. But I suck at math.
Counterargument: I'm good with languages, though, and I've always thought of music much more in terms of "grammar" and "syntax" than anything math-related. I have a bachelor's degree in English, a master's in rhetoric, and I'm aiming for a PhD.
RhetoricalQuestion helped me with algebra by telling me to think of variable definitions in terms of "connotation" and "denotation," so maybe I'll suck less at math now...
So, all things considered, is there really a correlation between math and music, or is it just another one of those cheesy intellect myths like that all truly "smart" people must be able to play chess well, or something?
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
And this is why there should be a minimum age limit on Slashdot. ANY hacker worth his salt knows tar is an bundler, not a compressor. Sheesh.
And seriously, moving from Ruby is just the new language of the moment, and Fortran is so, 1970s... As for perl, I'll have to see it to believe it. My experience is that programmers less than a year old can't properly grok doing multidimensional array syntax where one dimension is a hash, not to mention some of the cruftier reference use.
Punk.
I don't think you understand what linear thought is -- or rather more specifically and less cruelly, what I meant by it.
Linear thought is when you chain sequences subjects together in a way that makes sense TO YOU. Non linear though is when you escape sequences of subjects and can return to the original thought.
Example:
Put the blue can inside the red box. Seems linear eh? It's not, really. It's something like this:
Put
the
blue
can
inside
the
red
Box.
with each tab indicating a new piece of information that must be processed in the child's brain.
You have to sort of hold on to the subject/object of the previous clause to understand the complete sentence. Children, especially young children, get easily lost returning to the previous subject. Listen when they talk...they may start talking about the can, bring up the fact that it is red, and then begin a new topic about other red things. It is not unlinear...it makes sense, when traversing, to continue to "free associate" subjects that are similar. This is because language and logic are stored in the brain similar to the way string values are stored in a good hash table. "Red" may be closer to "firetruck" then it is to "inside," and so it's easier to come up with a new subject.
It seem crazy to you in the same way a schizophrenic's clang associations make little sense to the rest of us...we don't understand things in that order because it is much harder to get anything done when you're free associating everywhere.
"Kid friendly" isn't just designing an interface for "humans." Children haven't developed as complete a set of signs (uh oh, look out, here comes the Pseudo Chomsky) and so it's important to keep within the standard set of language for children, or at least not to introduce too many new terms. Kids can learn the terms "File", "Print" or "Document" pretty easily, as well as the location of the functions they need. What they can't do is intuit what might be meant by "paragraph formatting" and so forth. All kids need to do is double space shit...why not give them a "Double Space" option, and leave the paragraph formatting for a "more advanced than I need, and I'm a graduate student" version.
(Yes, technically I need the drop indent for bibliographies, but I can use the tab key if I REALLY have to. I do everything in a proportional font anyway.)
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Oh, I had two other problems with this post I wanted to mention.
First: no 2 year old understands the VALUE of money, even though she may understand its use or its importance. Money isn't about buying goods, it's about the tenuous trade off between pleasure, necesity and labor. A 2 year old understands only pleasure...she's never needed anything because you no doubt supply it well before the necesity is dire. She doesn't understand labor because at that age even chores are treated as games -- "lets help mommy do the dishes," etc. You, however, bust your ass to make sure she's got food and a stable roof and put up with a bunch of shit, sacrificing your own pleasure at times for stability and security. That 5 bucks means a lot more to you than just a couple minutes worked...it stands between you and hardship. If you've got a good savings plan, it means less than if you're paycheck to paycheck...and it's the same with your daughter. She's got the best savings plan and is doing the least to gain the most then she'll ever have in her life. What's five dollars when a DOLL can be had?
This is the real money trade off between corporate and open source software. Do you, as a user, get $100-200 worth of utility out of using Windows rather than Linux/BSD? I feel I do...shit, I've paid more money to Apple for upgrades than I've paid to MS for anything, and I don't feel cheated at all. At the same time, if I was a parent, fighting for hours with an MS OS that wouldn't run software my kids wanted while they nagged my ear off, I wouldn't be so hot to dump any money into their lap. It seems foolish to pay for a hard time.
The other thing. "Any kid that has been grounded knows about freedom." No -- any kid that has been grounded knows about imprisonment. It's not the same freedom Stallman rants about. Free as in beer and free as in speech are different from free as in not bound. It's very very difficult to teach anybody this kind of freedom, i'd say many of our leaders don't understand it, either. If they did, we'd see a much bigger libertarian party presence in this country. It's the difference between "If you don't love America, leave," a foolish phrase which has always reminded me of the jews fleeing Germany, and "If you don't love America, change it, because you have the right and ability to do so."
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Consider: If I know how to use VI or Emacs, I will know how to perform various important operations: opening files, saving files, printing documents, etc.. but I will not necessarily know, intuitively, how to do any of these things in a Windows application.
If I teach my kids to use Windows only for the operations that cannot be performed in Linux (mostly games, I would assume), unless I give them a Word clone like AbiWord or OpenWord, they're not going to know that Save, Open, and Print are obviously under the File menu. They won't know that Ctrl+S;Ctrl+P;[Return];Ctrl+X is a quick way to save, print, exit from any Office application. I don't want them to have to look around for these things when they're asked to write a paper in school. I want them to know these things like second nature.
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea