Linux for kids? Who knew!

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Err... yeah, well I suppose you can talk about other stuff as well, maybe?

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pheonixstorm
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Linux for kids? Who knew!

Post by pheonixstorm »

Spent some time looking over a lot of the linux distros and ran across a few designed just for kids. The most interesting, Sugar on a Stick, I plan on testing out on my daughter this weekend. Perhaps after using it for awhile she will become the resident Linux power user. Ah well, several good looking choices on the page I linked. Will probably download em all over the weekend and see which my kids like.
Because of YOU Arbiter, MY kids? can't get enough gas. OR NIPPLE! How does that mkae you feeeel? ~ Halo
loki1950
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Re: Linux for kids? Who knew!

Post by loki1950 »

There is even a buntu respin that is education flavored one Edubuntu IIRC you might consider running a proxy sever for the kids internet usage squid is an easy one to set up.One nice thing about Linux is how easy setting up restricted accounts is just make sure you are the first user you set up on any of the sudo only distros :wink:

Enjoy the Choice :)
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TBeholder
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Re: Linux for kids? Who knew!

Post by TBeholder »

I'm mostly puzzled by these. Does "for kids" means "inconvenient, but with brightly colored baloons"?
1 - Radial GUI... advantages unclear, but seems to be completely unstructured.
2 - Edubuntu uses... Unity?! Whom they want to raise, Mac fanboys? :cry:
3 - Old good XFCE with a fancy theme. Good. A second panel - in itself, a good idea. Usefulness of an extra tray as a panel of 7 simple launchers in addition to desktop and existing menu is dubious at best. The default Xubuntu on the image got 12 of them on a tray, that's at least worth a panel, though it's better to fully separate constantly monitored vs. auto-hide parts (my choice is "taskbar + notification + hot indicators" on top and "menu + launchers + lazy indicators" on a side).
4 - Looks both simple and sane. I could set up pretty much the same in xfce, however - 5x of either custom Application Menu or menu-extended launchers and a theme with large icons would do.
Speaking of which, 3 of 4 developers for some reason believe that all kids are half-blind and unable to discern normal large icons, so they need extra-extra-large ones. :roll:
loki1950 wrote: IIRC you might consider running a proxy sever for the kids internet usage squid is an easy one to set up.
Yup, squid's good even on one computer. Better expiration/refresh checks than using Firefox's own cache, let alone messy things like SVN. And allows to setup everything, including external DNS, then let clients that don't need this skip it all.
Polipo is fine, too.
Last edited by TBeholder on Sun Sep 29, 2013 4:39 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Linux for kids? Who knew!

Post by klauss »

Kids are usually clumsy, making big icons easier to click, especially with mice or touchpads.

Some kids aren't, but a big chunk of them have a hard time aiming at small targets. Hence the XL.
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Re: Linux for kids? Who knew!

Post by BillP »

You're doing it wrong. Is this your first?

If you want your daughter to be a linux whiz, a sysadmin savant, simply forbid her from using it. Done! :^)

(if she's 12-16, tell her boys who use linux are cute, troubled, play guitar, use drugs, drive motorcycles, and ignore their parents.)
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Re: Linux for kids? Who knew!

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"Two Eyes Good, Eleven Eyes Better." -Michele Carter
loki1950
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Re: Linux for kids? Who knew!

Post by loki1950 »

Like that one TB :lol: never have compiled a custom kernel never a need for one.

Enjoy the Choice :)
my box::HP Envy i5-6400 @2Q70GHzx4 8 Gb ram/1 Tb(Win10 64)/3 Tb Mint 19.2/GTX745 4Gb acer S243HL K222HQL
Q8200/Asus P5QDLX/8 Gb ram/WD 2Tb 2-500 G HD/GF GT640 2Gb Mint 17.3 64 bit Win 10 32 bit acer and Lenovo ideapad 320-15ARB Win 10/Mint 19.2
pheonixstorm
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Re: Linux for kids? Who knew!

Post by pheonixstorm »

I have during my days of playing with a stage 1 gentoo system. My biggest joy was a kernel I patched and compiled for gaming. It did have a small but noticeable affect on a very limited number of games. It was a fun experience though. Ended up with I think 3 custom kernels that I switched between
Because of YOU Arbiter, MY kids? can't get enough gas. OR NIPPLE! How does that mkae you feeeel? ~ Halo
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