Ubuntu Linux

After much research and deliberation ( OK not all that much).  I have set my son up with Ubuntu Linux on his laptop.  Now he is only going to be 7 this June so I didn’t want him to get bogged down by a ton of stuff.  I just wanted him to be able to turn it on, fire up a few games and have fun.   He wont be writing research papers, and at that age if he needs to search the web for a school project he should have supervision anyway.  The true motive behind it is to get him used to using a computer.  I think a lot of people get so focused on the fact that kids will eventually need to learn all about them that they should start as soon as possible. I don’t believe this to be entirely true.  Yes they do need to begin learning about them sooner than I ever did, however, that doesn’t mean he needs to be programming by age 7.  At this point is just enough for him to know his way around a computer.  Know the keyboard and where everything is, know how to use a mouse, or in his case a trackball (its what I had).  How to drag and drop, and double click, and right click, all the things you and I now take for granted.

So with this goal in mind I set out to find a decent OS that would allow him to learn the foundations of computers without having to know what a registry key is.  I decided pretty quickly that he would be best served with a linux system since it is free for every basic and advanced software package you can think of.  And also because it can be trimmed down to the bare bolts of what you want.  There is not a lot of need for installing or uninstalling a bunch of stuff.  The latest versions of linux are just as easy, if not easier to install than windows.  You can even burn a disk that you can run a live version of the OS to try it out without install it or changing anything on your current system.

After a little searching I found 3 possibilities.

1) “Sugar” – Which is the OS on the “One Laptop Per Child” project that is designed to run on a very low resource laptop and be very simple to understand, navigate, and interact with.  It is all those things, but not much else.  After trying it twice, on LiveCD I decided it was just a little to pre-school-ly.

2) “Qimo” – Which itself is a very nice OS it looks graphically appealing but is also a little too “pre-school” for my soon to be 7 year old.  It is a version of Ubuntu Linux that has been packaged for kids and come pre-installed with several game packages.

That when it hit me.  I could just use Ubuntu and just install these packages but leave the other stuff i want him to learn also.

3) “Ubuntu” – I chose to just use Ubuntu linux for a couple reasons.  I could get all the game packages that are on “Qimo” and I could leave packages that I want him to eventually pick up.  I still wanted to keep the web browser available because there are website that he likes including “NickJR”.  I can create launchers for these sites on the desk top and they would launch the browser to the site but not have the address or navigation bars to allow him to go surfing the net.  i also set up a remote desktop app so that I can pop on and monitor whatever he is doing from my laptop.  It also helps me when I want to update or manage his laptop but I don’t have to get up and go sit at his table to do it.

Also I should note here that I started with Ubuntu and eventually installed the Edubuntu packages.  Edubuntu is Ubuntu with all the Education packages and games that you want for kids.

There is also an ulterior motive to putting Linux instead of windows.  It is that Linux is more stable, less prone to crashes or virus’, and he will know his way around PC and Linux machine before he is 10.  And since Mac is now basically a Unix OS he can transition to MaxOS easily.

A couple of the packages I suggest are:

GCompris:  This package has spelling, math, puzzles, science, and several other games that are perfect for kids from Kinder to 3rd grade.

Childsplay: This also has great educational games for primary school age kids.

Jet is playing Hangman right now.  A great game for kids to learn the keyboard.

Don’t go out and buy a kid between 5 and 10 a new laptop or desktop for them to play with.  Kids don’t need a terabyte of storage and 4 gig of RAM.  Nor do they need a terribly powerful graphics card.  I used a 5 year old laptop with a dead battery.  It stays plugged in all the time cause he doesn’t need to take it with him.  That old laptop you have in the closet could be your kids favorite toy, and help them learn a ton and maybe get a head start on that Computer Science degree.

References for if you want to do the research yourself.

Qimo – http://www.qimo4kids.com/

Sugar – http://www.sugarlabs.org/

Ubuntu – http://www.ubuntu.com/

Edubuntu – http://www.edubuntu.com/  ( Easiest way for the non-techie, easy install and setup)

Let me know if you found this helpful.  Or if you have questions on how to set up your kids PC.