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Ask Slashdot: Some Good Linux Desktop Option For Kids?
New submitter TIWolfman writes: I'm looking to re-purpose some of the older hardware that I've held onto to create something of a starter machine for my kids (both aged below 10). At this point it's still just a few shortcut icons I can setup on the desktop for them, primarily to web tools/sites they use, but I'd like some flexibility; everything I've read suggests options that haven't had any activity since 2015. Is there an option out there or is this just a custom job?
If you want them to be successful later in life and be able to integrate seemlessly into the modern business and financial world, I would suggest Microsoft Windows - it's universally used in the modern professional engineering and financial industries. If you send them off on a dead-end path down the road of hobbyist and non-commercial operating systems, you will confuse the hell out of them and set them up for scorn and failure when the time comes for them to get a job. They literally will have nothing to bring to the table for any employer to even consider them above a more qualified and trained candidate.
Except independent thought and the ability to understand how a computer works by getting hands dirty if desired?
I really don't have any idea from the submission what it is you're looking for. What is it you want for kids that's different from what you'd want for adult users? Give us some idea of your objectives.
When someone says, "Any fool can see
I've used linux as a primary OS since I was 13... and I repair windows computers for a living. If we are talking non-IT jobs, the basic window manager and libre office will have a near negligable shift between OS's. Most likely as little or less than the inevitable shift between windows 10 and windows 13 or whatever version is next to release. If computers does turn out to be what they want.. then expose them to a bit of everything. They should know windows, and linux etc...
If you want them to be unable to adapt the next time Microsoft revamps the Windows UI, or their boss asks them to use a Mac, or even a Ubuntu machine, then teaching a kid the current Windows UI and refusing to expose them to anything non-Windows is a good way to do it.
If you want them to have generic skills that can apply across all platforms, and not assume that because one thing works one way everything else does, then providing them with something different to the UI used on the school computers, etc, is a better approach.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Nope, nope, nope. Better to be more flexibly educated than locked to one platform. Expose the kids to multiple environments.
People tote out the "just learn Windows" line all the time, but nobody seems to pay attention to the fact that the Windows UI has changed radically more than once, to the point where, for example, if you only familiarized yourself with Windows 9x/2000/XP/7, you would probably have been better off switching to a Linux environment running something like XFCE, Cinnamon or MATE than being forced to use the schizophrenic horror that was Windows 8 and that has made its way, however slightly tempered, to Windows 10.
Many (most?) business eschew changing platforms because "OMG, retraining" but when Microsoft makes radical changes they don't bother retraining because "hey, it's just Windows, so you must already know how to use it". Bunk. Win8/10 is a more significant change from WinXP/7 than many Linux environments. Even switching from XP/7 to OS X is a lot cleaner than WinXP/7 to Win8/10. The same was true when Microsoft forced the ribbon on us in Office. "What's the big deal, it's Microsoft Office so why do you need training?" However-many-years-later, it's still a PITA finding stuff on the ribbon that was easily located in the menus.
No it's not. There are several fine desktop options available for those who decide to use Linux. What the world is waiting for is adults who recognize the advantage of breaking free from monopolistic, profit-driven, central control of their electronic/online experience.
When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law he tore his robes.2Kings22:11
> If you want them to be successful later in life and be able to integrate seemlessly into the modern business and financial world, I would suggest Microsoft Windows
These are modern children we are talking about, not middle aged dinosaurs ready to be put out to pasture.
Kids aren't nearly that stupid. They can manage to use one brand of app and apply the same concepts to another. Someone under the age of 10 might be exposed to Linux or MacOS and not even percieve these as distinct platforms.
Your sort of zealotry is gravely outdated.
Besides, whatever they learn in the Microsoft space today will be gravely outdated by the time they might be exposed to it in the "real world".
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The Earlier kids master these skills the better they will be when it's time to enter the workforce.
As the following article confirms:
https://news.slashdot.org/stor...
My kids have always had a computer. Literacy was taught on a PC. My 17 yr old is getting 80%+ on her AWS certification practice tests and is almost ready to enter the tech workforce while most other kids her age are almost ready to start flipping burgers.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.