HI,

I like linux so much and I wish to express a personal opinion about linux , I know, I know, I am a newbie, but please hear me out .

when most people say migrating from windo to linux, they mostly are people with proffesional experience and are familiar with windo or else they won't be doing so. That is fine. But what about our
kids like our sons and daughters, they choose to login windo even when I had default set to login
linux, all because windo is so easy to use and are supported by so many high end game softwares.
What I want to say here is if linux is to increase its number of users in the long run, it should make it easily available to kids and juniors as well. wouldn't it be a good idea if there are versions and distro of linux written for this age group? perhaps, then, in the future, linux will be the preferred OS.

My son Alex,who is 13, after seeing the linux screen with a small redhat at the bottom left corner for a couple of years has finally started to accept linux being another good OS besides . . .windo.
( He took my word it )

please don't kick my s-s-s-s-s if you disagree with my opinion.


smallfisih
linuxfans

I agree, the amount of terminal running that one has to do in redhat would be enough to discourage the not so computer savvy, My age group would be targeted by your suggested distro, windows is much easier to use. Unfortunatly people think of linux as an OS for computer sci students, which is partly true, but it is usable by everyone, it just takes more work. As linux gets a stronger following i think it will become more user friendly, not quite to to amount of the idiot-proof mac, and it shouldnt ever descend to that level, but if it becomes as easy to uses as Windows, then It will become the most popular operating system, why pay for an equal product?

Alex

i believe Red Hat is not the ideal choice for newbies. U shud have probably gone in for Mandrake (very easy and hassles free installation) or tried a boot-from-CD distro such as Knoppix.

In my school, kids as young as 10 have accepted Linux as the "In thing". So, Linux is newbie friendly, the problem is the Distro selection.

i have knoppix, but i need a server and i believe that you have to pay for mandrake. Redhat seemed to me to be the best option for setting up a webserver. I could be wrong though. Ill check to see if i can host in knoppix, but my computer is slow and runs knoppix slow. Do you think i could install knoppix so that it didnt have to run off the cd?

Alex

I have not used Mandrake before.

the first distro I used was redhat 7.1 then 7.3 and 8.0.

In distro 7.1 and 7.3 I always had problem with unable to activate the
modem etc. but with distro 8.0 it works fine with not much of a problem.
I am using broadband with ADSL modem and a router for access to the internet.

Mandrake is a popular distro too here in H. K.

hope I can be more helpful.

smallfish
linux fans

I have redhat an an OLD 1.2 Gig HD, P133 with 48 Meg's ram, and it is about 3 times faster than 95 ever was on it. It has the truetype fonts, and my son loves it (11 when introduced to Linux). Of course, I configured it to a T, but he jams to his CDs, and he uses my ogg backup CDs. He even learned to burn his own CDs from the one's I have. Mostly on the net, CDs, love's lbreakout2, and many other games. Likes to IM me at work. It is all a matter of configuration. When I am the OEM, and people get their machine just like it would be from a real OEM, the transition is trivial.

The machine was basically toast. It could not be upgraded without faster CPU, more memory, bigger HD (as it is, Redhat still took about 1 gig), just for the priviledge of paying MS ~$100 for 98 (at the time). (95 with Netscape on the web was causing the BSOD on, at most, 1/2 hour levels).

Heck, I bet he switches screensavers twice a day just because he knows how, and his background changes hourly. (He has a JamCam that he takes digital pictures with, had to show him once how to use gtkam).

My opinion, it isn't a lack of apps, it is the lack of OEMs delivering pre-installed preconfigured Linux systems.

Want games, get a Gamecube, about $100 with 2 games, or PS2, save yourself at least $1,000 NOT buying a new PC, new software, new games, etc.

R.O.

Now, my sister, with her Linux machine and 3 kids, 7,4,1 (obviously, the 1 year old isn't using the computer yet) have a blast with Linux cause they CAN"T HURT IT. I don't know how many times I heard pre-linux 'Well, Jamie did something, and now it won't boot'. Installed everything I could find from
http://www.linuxforkids.org/. Alex, the 4 year old will play http://users.powernet.co.uk/kienzle/stickers/index.html till he can't see straight and still gets upset when you make him stop.

Mine, Alex 13, had his screen background set to black characters on
dark- blue background,and a certain light- green bgcolor for dropdown
menues plus a couple of awful colors he could find for window border.

Just imagine how the screen would look with all those awful mismatching
colors, I almost need to use an electric torch just in order read the characters.

My box has win 2k and linux redhat dual boot.

smallfish
linuxfans

Just to correct this, Mandrake is free and works very well as a server or desktop distro. With Mandrake you have the option of buying the software and the option of joining the Mandrake Club but these are strictly optional.

The iso images can be downloaded for free and everything you need for both server and PC comes on those isos.

I'm 14... downloaded and installed and messed around with RedHat 9 and now SuSE 9... (and knoppix)

I love it!
If only I could get 3D Graphics working in SuSE 9! NVidia does a lousy job...

I still have winblows (I duol-boot) for games.
Linux is great, and improving very fast, but its still not perfect.

When 3D Graphics, and wineX imrove a bit more it will be better then winblows on all points!
Maybe when wineX 4 and a NVidia driver installer that actually works will come out more people inculding kids will switch...

One of the problems that kids doing high school face is that they cant use their linux boxes for programming (GCC).

The reason for this is that GCC is a completely different environment and it wont do to submit a project written for GCC, remember the school promotes properitary software

silly rabbit... linux is for kidz anyways... i use redhat and it's not too bad... as for writing it in gcc, as long as he/she can open it in the proprietary version and recreate all the build information it shouldn't matter too much, but with school projects it probably won't be that much of a challange as you probably won't be dealing with too many modules/headers/libraries/etc.... actually some c++ teachers do use gcc, mine did, g++ on novell unixware, (and i still didn't lean c++). in fact that was my fist brush with a *nix OS before installing linux.

I use Mandrake 9.1, with a Dual boot with WindowsXP (used to use winME).

What can i say? Mandrake fullfilled all my exspectations and much more, i have it setup as an Apache webserver, complete the SQL databases for PHP sites, i even let an old friend (linux fanatic but currently doesn't have a distro installed) logon using telnet to get a feel for the system, me and him can be throwing commands and around all night, (echo, write, etc), having a laugh, no harm is done!

It fulfills the networking front, but it also does a great job with games too! After installed the GLX nvidia drivers, i downloaded the UT2003 demo and it played great, also got Enemy Territory, also plays smooth. I've recently got WineX and have been using that for some of my windows based games.

The Interface in linux is much better, and more practical than the windows interface, i use enlightenment, it's my favourite WM, if gives you soo much space to run applications, in windows i would have filled the taskbar, and would have had to drag it up 3 times! Also it shows off your wallpaper, unlike a windows system where the wallpaper is hidden behind aload of windows, enlightenment shows it off nicely.

I can understand the orginal point :
i agree, but windows only supports those games because the games were made for it. I can see in the future, prehaps already happening now, game developpers making dual platform games, unreal tournament 2003 can be installed on both linux and windows, no problems! The Sims has already been ported to linux, Other programs like Enemy territory, and stuff like that already support linux. So your excuse that windows support top end games is running out! As for easy to use, can u not get any easyer than KDE? My 9yr old sister loves linux, and thinks KDE is great, she plays games all the time in it!

smallfish have you ever try "pequelin" (http://www.pequelin.org/tikiwiki_1.7...w_articles.php) it is in spanish (I guess there must be something similar in English). It is a version of linux design for kids, it has a lot of educational games for children of all ages. I just give a copy to my small cousins (4,6,8 years old childred) and they were really happy with it. The great thing is that you dont have to intall anything, just boot from the cd and Pequelin is ready to use (like knoppix) and your kids wont mess your computer.
For third world country like mine (Ecuador) it is a great alternative for childres to use an OS that they would be available to use when they are big without breaking the law. In Ecuador just big companies buy legal property software the rest of the people (I use to be in this group before linux) can buy copies on the street for 2 dollars each cd, it doesn't matter if it is a game or it is oracle or what ever.
I am going to review the link post by RolledOat http://www.linuxforkids.org/.

by the way my 4 years old cousin didn't let the older kids to use the computer with pequelin. If anyone here speak spanish I am sure that you would love Pequelin. My father is Mayor of a city in Ecuador and I am going to encourege him to give free copy of this cd to the shools. The kids would almost wont need the help of a teacher. It is easy to use and it have programs to teach kids how to use the computer from how to move the mouse to more complex learnig programs for high school

by the way my 4 years old cousin didn't let the older kids to use the computer with pequelin. If anyone here speak spanish I am sure that you would love Pequelin. My father is Mayor of a city in Ecuador and I am going to encourege him to give free copy of this cd to the shools. The kids would almost wont need the help of a teacher. It is easy to use and it have programs to teach kids how to use the computer from how to move the mouse to more complex learnig programs for high school.
I also installed Mandrake 9.1 as the default OS in their computer (a pentium 2 300Mhz 128 ram) for comun use and Mandrake cames with a lot of games for kids. Does windows cames with something interesing for kids?