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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?
The world in general is still waiting for a good Linux Desktop for adults...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
https://www.edubuntu.org/
Last release was in 2015 but it's on a 5-year LTS cycle
Nice UI, stable, easy to install. Consider launching in VM, so you can easily snapshot/restore or even clone the whole environment.
Sugar is still in active development, and is built with the explicit purpose of "interactive learning for children".
https://www.sugarlabs.org/
If you're looking for an easy to use Linux desktop, have you considered Mint? It's ben two years since I used it, but with the Cinnamon DE it was very Windows-like. Easy enough to put some icons on the desktop.
If you were looking to do something more locked-down and kiosk-like, then I'm no help - have never researched that.
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
My kids are considerably younger, but I installed Doudou Linux on an old netbook for them to learn how to navigate and use the mouse and keyboard. They are 4 and 2 and love using TuxPaint and some of the puzzles in the GCompris Educational Suite.
People who were watching this when they were 10 are old enough to buy alcohol now. Find a newer reference.
Tux Racer, Tux Paint, Super Tux Kart etc.
And none of this modern shit.... give those little snots Version 2.1 on 70 floppy disks! Thatâ(TM)ll showâ(TM)em! If I had to struggle as a youth to learn Linux, so should everyone!!
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
If you want them to learn I'd let them figure out Arch or any other distro themselves using documentation. Otherwise, if you want ease of use and educational apps... Android or Chrome
Edubuntu used to be what you are looking for. However, it seems to be abandoned.
I found the GCompris program to be very good a few years ago. I don't know how well it aged. You should be able to install it on any version of Linux.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
I hear good things about "Ubermix" http://www.ubermix.org/about.h... The project focuses on a reduced complexity environment and includes educational applications. might be worth looking at
When my nephew was 9, I set up a computer for him. I gave him a MATE desktop, which basically works similar to Windows, and he was able to use it right away.
I didn't give him root on his own machine. However, I gave his user sudo permission to run the Software Manager. I gave him Linux Mint, which is a tweaked version of Ubuntu, so it was basically the Ubuntu Software Manager. This is pretty similar to the app store on mobile devices. So he had no ability to screw up his system, but he could browse the Software Manager, find a game or something, and install it with a click.
My goal was to set his baseline expectations to Linux. I wanted him to see Windows and say "wait, there's no app store thing with free games on Windows? How primitive, give me my Linux please." I wouldn't say my brainwashing attempt succeeded, but he just turned 12 and he still uses the Linux computer for most of what he does on a computer. He also has a Windows laptop that he uses to run some Windows-only stuff he likes. But he chooses which computer to use just based on what he wants to run; he has no particular preference for Windows or for Linux.
P.S. His Linux computer is an all-in-one made by Lenovo, with a really nice and big screen. I got it really inexpensively on eBay; I believe it was off-lease.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Us t hat what will give you the most supporty. If you have a friend that used Debian, use that as that will be the person who you ask and that is what he knows.
So for the kid it will be whatever you use. As you post here, I assume you at least know how to change a desktop to look as you want it to look.
Do that and you are done.
I did not even need to know how old the kid is or what its capabilities and/or limits are as you will just know.
Now if you use something that you know will not be possible to be adapted enough, just use one of the three big ones that can be easily installed on your distro of choice. XFCE, KDE or GNOME. Pick one that is easiest for YOU to install and/or maintain.
Remember that you will be the one that has to repair things when it breaks. If the small adult is larger, you could install more than one and have the mini-you make its own choice if it wants to. Could be that the kid has absolutely no interest in it and rather does something else. That is a real option. I know I wanted to do things my dad did not like, just because.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
My kid who's 5 now started using KDE/Mint over a year ago. Plays minetest, does abcmouse, watches Nick Jr on it.
The latest Raspberry Pi model 3's come with Wi-Fi and four USB ports. The OS is on an SD card. You can make up several SD cards for different purposes using any of the many interesting distros available. Raspian is a decent basic Linux OS. As far as using old hardware goes, just retain the mice, keyboards and montors. Give each kid their own Pi and a few distros depending on their interests.
Distrowatch will let you look at distributions based on hardware type: Distro Watch Raspberry Pi
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
It's fast, has 32 and 64 bit processor support, 4 different versions (I installed xfce), intuitive, well supported, can set up parental controls, lots of downloadable kids' stuff... there's more but I'm already boring.
Linux Mint
Kids are much smarter than you might think and if they are really interested they will pick it right up.
Rick B.
If you're willing to drop a few bucks on a Raspberry Pi, Kano is an impressive project, acting as both kid-friendly desktop environment and programming education tool. Lots of built-in coding tutorials, a "learn how to use the shell" game, and a code-oriented version of Minecraft, to boot.
http://developers.kano.me/downloads/
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
My two year old took about ten minutes to learn the iPad, or at least it seemed like about 10 minutes. Kids learn fast, so they'll be able to click shortcut icons in any distribution no problem. The only question is how many weeks it will take before they've subverted your parental protections and have full access to the Internet.
Since the district isn't going to matter to the kids, I'd probably pick whatever the parent is most comfortable setting up an maintaining. Something with good automatic security updates that has long term support.
Since it will probably only take them a few minutes, and at most hours, to learn how to click the icons, after that there is an opportunity for them to learn a little bit about how the computer works. Some distributions make that more visible and discoverable than others.
Yes, get your children started early on corporate control of their lives. They don't need to think for themselves, solutions are provided by profit-driven monopolies, the way it should be... Jesus...
When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law he tore his robes.2Kings22:11
Or KDE.
> Linux makes a great desktop option for people who don't value their own time.
It's not 1998 anymore. It's time to update your FUD playbook.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Personally, I've done stock Lubuntu on old hardware with shortcuts for a browser with PBS kids as homepage, a few local movies, GCompris, Tux Paint, LibreOffice Writer, and when they got a little older, Minecraft, Steam. If they are not yet used to a mouse, I highly recommend a one button kid-sized version like the Chester Mouse, this made a huge difference in usability / frustration [especially since they liked to play with scroll wheel a lot]. Overall, whatever distro you are most comfortable with is probably good enough, they will likely only ever use the shortcuts on the desktop until older*. * Most likely, I claim no liability for whatever random you-tubes they find or terminals they open. Their account will not be on the sudo list, right? :-)
There are likely to be builds of ChromiumOS that you can install on the computer, and it produces the effect of ChromeOS running on hardware which will almost certainly be much better than some Chromebook.
Load all the GUIs available. Try each to see which runs acceptably on your older hardware. I suspect that the latest Gnome or KDE versions may be challenged depending on the age of the hardware and graphic card in use. Show them how to select a different one when they login if they want. Report back in a few months to see which one they picked.
I tend to use KDE. Some of the kids use MATE. Some use KDE. Really, what matters are the applications and those will run pretty much on any desktop. Just make sure the GUIs you provide at least work and can do basic things. If they don't, then remove them from the O/S before letting the kids play around.
I'm just the opposite: as a Windows 10 hater, I realy like Mint.
Circumcision is child abuse.
I have found the exact opposite to be true.
I helped my son build his first linux computer from a bunch of broken and discarded PCs when he was 11 years old.
When the boy was a sophomore in college, he was hired by NASA Goddard. Then a Washington DC legal software firm hired him away from NASA at a significant pay increase. A year later NASA tried to hire him back, and the law firm gave him a nice big raise to prevent that.
Oh, and also, he can spell "seamlessly".
Congratulations! You spoiled him!
It's my prerogative as his uncle to spoil him if I want. His mom, my sister, was fine with it.
And actually, he never asked for a Linux computer... I just wanted him to have one and I made it happen.
But thanks for telling me your opinion! I always worry I'm not getting enough input into my decisions from Anonymous Cowards on Slashdot.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Making your kids use Linux should be considered child abuse.
You misspelled MS Windows.
I have noticed chosen distro does not really make a difference. First my sons used Linux Mint happily, mostly watching videos on Youtube. Later I installed Ubuntu Gnome and they made no remarks, they found the browser on their own. I went back to Linux Mint because my older son likes to update the OS, and Mint has nice icon showing when updates are available. I like using Mint in computers I've promised to maintain (my 70+ years old aunt and uncle and some friends) because the machines really do not require much effort. Seldom update them with remote connection and twice installed printer drivers remotely. If you want to present your kids some nice games, I recommend Fedora Games distribution https://labs.fedoraproject.org... . It has ~100 games pre-installed, they work off-line and some of them are actually ok.
Sold a laptop a while ago, came preinstalled with Endless OS, and the buyer said she and her kids (3yo) prefeers it over Windows. Simple GUI, great kids games preloaded.
https://endlessos.com/
drmad
They have a Fedora based kid environment. Haven't played with in years. I got use this with the laptop I got when I donated to the cause. The unit is cute and has some interesting mesh networking features built in. This circle thing is a bit weird but, kind of works.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There isn't a kid-specific desktop or distro that I'm aware of, and I'm not sure that'd be advisable anyway. Instead of kid-specific, maybe a regular distro and desktop with some unneeded things left out.
I'd start with Mint. It's easy to set up (which means it's easy to re-image if things get too screwed up) easy to maintain, and no more difficult to use than any other desktop.
My "serious work" laptop runs CentOS to maintain compatibility with the RHEL servers at my work. But the casual usage laptop I share with the family runs Mint. (It's a repurposed laptop that doesn't have the grunt to run Windows 10, but with an SSD and maxed out ram, runs Linux just fine.)
Mind you, we have a couple of Winders desktops for things only Winders can do, but the number of Microsoft-only applications we still have to deal with as a family is steadily dwindling. (I've said this before, but the ONLY thing I need in order to be able to dump the Big Two (OSX/Windows) is a native port of Adobe CC to Linux. ANY version of Linux -- I'm not picky.)
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
To give you an idea, it's basically the "Linux Mint" of Debian but with custom tools like ElementaryOS has to make things even easier. So, it's really easy to use but stable as hell. Matter of fact, if something that normally breaks on Debian, the maintainer has repos with fixed versions. An example I've already noticed was with OBS Studio. The interface is kind of like XFCE but the panel is on the left side and a searchable app menu. Uses only 300-400MB of RAM after login and startup. The creator has a few really good YouTube videos on it.
give those kids some slack, they're pretty smart (smarter then you think they are, probably) and can use computers just fine. ...)
just create a new user on your linux pc and let them go at it. my youngest (8 now, but she was using it as youndgas 6) has no problems doing all the things that are important to her on the pc (starting a browser, playing some music, writing,
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Cinnamon edition. He likes it. It runs on an ivy bridge i3 I bought second hand for $100
JOE
227-3517
If they're primary age kids, ubuntu. That has a childish interface that's good for them.
Secondary - Fedora with KDE. That's a much more mature look & feel to a desktop.