Slashdot Mirror
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
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
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?"
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
...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.
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?
You say that kids shouldn't be indoctrinated in one side or the other, but you also say that they should just have Windows on the machine. How about you install multiple OSs and let the kids experience them all. That way they will have their own choice and they will be familiar with multiple environments. They'll know how to adapt to things being in different places, so that next time one of their OSs changes its UI, they'll be able to adapt.
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
but he kept chewing up and spitting out the CDs. Didn't work very well.
sulli
RTFJ.
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."
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.
Actually, I disagree. Bring your kids up with what you believe in. When they're young, they'll follow along and soak it up. When they get old enough, they'll start to learn about alternatives and may want to explore them. This is where you as a parent should get out of the way.
- DDT
So long, michael. Don't let the door hit you...
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!
it actually might be a fairly successful and worthwhile task to tackle. consider this:
back in the early 1900s and up to the present, though it's less prevalent today, a lot of children who were in american schools had parents who had immigrated from another country and were incapable of speaking english. they quite successfully learned to speak their parents' language at home, and english at school and with friends.
so here's my point: what's wrong with your children using linux/macos/etc. at home and another at school and other friends' houses? revolutions start small, don't they? just think how awesome it would be if your child were at a friend's house and said 'your computer can't do this? well mine can.' maybe it'd make someone else curious.
give credit where credit's due. kids are incredibly resilient (i'm learning this from my daughter as we speak). the more flexible and open you can keep them, even if it's by them using multiple OSes, the better off they'll be.
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.
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.
Let the child decide
..and I've never talked about windows and microsoft with him like we do here on slashdot. Given that, he is able to use both OSes fairly well for his level. Once when I was out i had left my computer on Win2k running and when I came back he typed up a letter for me and drew a picture using Adobe Illustrator..which kinda amazed me b/c I only showed him Illustrator once a long time ago. On the Linux side, he likes the Gnome games as well as Tux Racer and Chromium B.S.U.
I have an 8 yr old bro and although he doesn't use a computer much, I always maintain one in his room for his use. I used to dual boot win98 and linux on his computer like mine (except mine dual boots w2k) so he can choose what he needs for the games he plays. Turns out, he used linux more often than the windows.
Eventually my "support" for his win9x became a nightmare and I just asked him point blank "do you need windows?" and his response was "no, I mostly use Linux".
$cat
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.
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.
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.
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...
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
"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!
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!
Anyhow,... I have 2 decent games boxes for my kids running windows, but I've also provided both vnc and shell (PuTTY) interfaces to my server and I'm encouraging my son (the girls just are NOT interested at this stage) to explore. Little progress so far, but he's at least poked around a bit.
-----
For great justice!
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
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.