Calm down, edbarx. (I can see you've edited your post and no longer call me a bully. Thanks for that. Now you call me arrogant and brainwashed. I guess it's a progress.)

I have nothing against your proposed structure of the course. It'd be brilliant for college students of computing.

Having knowledge is always good but before a learner has the knowledge of a subject, it needs to be presented in a way that will interest a learner and should start at the appropriate level. According to your post, you'd start introducing the subject with:

No 13-year old (who isn't sure if he even wants to get into Linux) should be exposed to the above.

No, what discourages the youths (or probably anyone in this respect) is being presented dry, abstract facts that have no direct relevance (for them) on their everyday use of linux. Again, don't get me wrong, these are important things but NOT for an average teenager who is not sure if he cares about linux yet.

*sigh* It might be understandable to you - not to a 13-year old who is yet to try linux.

Being a bit touchy, aren't we? I didn't attack you. I jokingly (sorry if it wasn't clear) criticised your way of introducing a young lad to the world of linux. I still stand by it. What you proposed is in NO way appropriate for young people who are not linux geeks yet.


Am I? Thanks for telling me that. No, the truth is that you'd have to know the kid first to be able to competently decide on a course of action. Each person has different areas of interests and preferred ways of learning. Definitely I'd start with combining fun/play/challenge with learning. The details would depend on an individual's other interests.

Thanks, I'm sure there's a compliment somewhere.

It's not being tricked. It's showing how linux can be relevant/useful for their current interests. Linux is not just about kernel programming and libraries.

Agree.

Although we disagree, I cannot stop myself from admiring the educated way you replied to my outburst of a post.

I beg your pardon.

The above is a comment that can come across in several ways all at once. To me it comes across as a bit snarky...? To some it may come across as sarcastic or worse still condescending... which is probably why edbarx reacted as he did.

Anyway...

I agree with much of what you posted there, but there are aspects of what edbarx posted which are also correct - i.e. that deception is the wrong route, but it still doesn't hurt to give someone the best impression according to their needs. For example, you don't have your grandmother go X less... at the same time you don't recommend shiny, spinny animated full bloat desktops to someone who is happy with windows 95/98 and hates new style UIs... when it comes to kids though you have to accept that a boring lecture on how an OS works is not going to hold their attention for long - but a more practical approach i.e. giving them something to actually play about with - will.

Most people start with the default gnome or KDE using only the GUI and work from there - I'm pretty sure that's how the majority of GNU/Linux users start out? If that's how someone started out then that's a good way for their son/daughter/student to start out.

As I said earlier, if he can't play his games and does not get any benefit from switching to GNU/Linux then you have to ask yourself: "why?". I have asked myself that in past, many times when recommending GNU/Linux to other people - am I doing this for myself or for that person? What if anything do they stand to gain? With children it's no different, unless you regard GNU/Linux as an ideology or religious movement, or some kind of anti windows movement in which case you're probably a GNU/Linux user for the wrong reasons and will be passing it on to someone else for the wrong reasons.

The short version, I would do what frankbell says: Start with a distro with a "nice" desktop. Show him what it can do, leave him in no doubt that this is something on the same level as (or quite arguably above) windows/mac - and then just let him get on with it. He can then decide if he wants to use it or not. Don't expect immediate results - don't pester and say "oh I see you're in windows again..." and stuff like that. The more you coerce, or as you said earlier force, young people into something, the more they'll do the opposite. Plant the seed and leave it to grow. It either will or it won't.

The words deception and tricking pop up. I genuinely don't know where they came from. Let me clarify it. I would never try to portray Linux as something that it isn't. You need to find where a person interests overlap with linux's strengths or capabilities. Learning is most efficient when it's meaningful and interesting to the learner. Especially at the beginning. It makes the learner motivated to explore on their own. In their exploration they will go deeper and deeper in the area of Linux they are most interested in. In the process of doing that they will touch upon kernels and libraries and if they decide to go that route they will be motivated and perfectly clear why they need that.

Presenting dry, boring and most importantly not meaningful (at the beginning) facts is not very productive for a beginner. Actually he is not even a beginner. It would be like me to listen to a dry lecture about some super important fundamentals of gardening. No, thank you.

Coming back to deception. OK let's try fifa in wine. If it doesn't work nicely, let's play fifa on windows but eg. Try to create a simple football manager in bash (with tables and fixtures for games. Just an example

My phone is dying. Need to finish

Moderator response
 

I will remind all participants of the following LQ Rules;
This one is as important;
Everyone should take a deep breath & re-read their post before pressing the <submit>. Please adhere to the LQ Rules & Netiquette.

Look at in this way: 'How would this 13 year old interpret the thread/posts that have been submitted by LQ members?'

A few enlightening quotes;

"Knowledge is of two kinds. We Know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it."- Samuel Johnson

"It is one of the most beautiful compensations in life…that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Life's tough...It's even tougher if you're stupid." - John Wayne

do you know this: http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/ ?

This would be the approach which I would recommend.

I am a minor; my interest in Linux came organically when I heard about this thing called "Ubuntu" from a friend and fellow nerd. I installed it on an old laptop which had been running Windows Vista but was loaded down with malware. I spent that night configuring, tweaking, and falling in love; Ubuntu was, in my opinion, the "best thing since sliced bread!"

Soon after my initial foray into this world of Terminal commands and desktop environments, I lost access to what was then my primary system: a sort-of-high-end-ish gaming laptop running Windows 7. This forced me to become very intimate with the workings of Linux-based systems very fast, as suddenly I only had access to the aforementioned Ubuntu laptop.

That was almost two years ago; while I still think Windows 7 is a decent operating system, I prefer Linux-based systems (specifically Xubuntu and #!) for most tasks. I no longer run Windows 7, or any version of Windows, on any of my computers.

I didn't read everything above.

Just to give you MY 2 cents, why do you want your kid to start with knowing an OS? Why don't you start introducing him to say, BASIC programming directly.....? That's what I did when I was his age (back then there WERE no such things as OSes on my ZX Spectrum!).
I don't know what BASICs are available under Linux, but you can search.

Since he will be doing BASIC UNDER Linux, he'll be forced to have some basic idea about the system. *If* this sparks some curiosity, he can learn more about the OS from myriad webpages on the net. But I don't think BASH programming is right for a 12 year old, it's far too unrewarding. So, let him start, see how it goes, and tell him about this place. If all goes well, maybe we'll soon be answering his questions directly....? :)

That's exactly how I started. Those were the days:)

Alternatively, if we went a programming route, Python might also be a viable choice. I can see a lot of google results for 'python for kids' (I haven't checked them though)

Hey sycamore,
What do you work on now? :)

PM me, I'd love to know. (plz dont email, I dont check that addr.)

set YOUR EXCEPTIONS a side they are your exceptions don't dump them on the kid
really short lessons won't tax his attention before he gets interested
be sure you know how to do what ever you are tiring to show hem before you show it to hem
nothing will drive the kid away faster than you reading man pages while he waits
letting hem chose as much as he can about the look and feel will help hem feel empowered
and will help foster an interest