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French Kids Get OSS on USB Sticks

Posted by Zonk on from the fun-way-to-travel dept.

daria42 writes "To help make kids aware of alternatives to proprietary software the Ile-de-France, the political district of greater Paris, will give 175,000 school children and apprentices USB keys loaded with open-source software. With a word-processing program, audio and video playback capabilities, an email client and an IM client, these are essentially computers on a stick. The council touts this as 'represent[ing] for students a tool of freedom and mobility between their school, cybercafes and their home or friends' PCs'." With the prevalence of internet cafes in Europe, that might work better than in the US ... but do you think such a project would work here as well? If so, what software would you want to see loaded up?

3 of 313 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Computers on a stick? by dosius · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Yeah, where's the CPU?

    -uso.

    --
    What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
  2. give them an emulator by swell · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Give them an Apple ][ or Commode 64 with some documentation, Basic & assembly languages, sample programs, debuggers... Let them experience the essence of computing as no modern computer can allow.

    Programming today is done by teams because it is generally impossible for a single person to cover all the bases of getting a product to market. The novice must surely be flummoxed by the current piecemeal approach to programming, much as the blind men were in trying to devine the totality of an elephant by the feel of some of its parts.

    The Apple & Commodore were well documented and had available much software that would help to understand the hardware, firmware and software essence of computing. There are no powerful games for these machines, or IM capability that would distract modern kids from learning useful stuff. A whole bunch of 8 bit stuff could be crammed onto a single USB stick!

    --
    ...omphaloskepsis often...
  3. virtual linux by mrmeval · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I'd want a virtual linux system that will autostart a session when I stick it in or that will boot directly into linux if I restart. I am wanting to have as much seperation of my information from MS stuff as possible.

    I am not sure how to achieve that. I have a bootable USB drive and would have to work on getting the virtual system set up.

    --
    I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty