Today my 11 year old expressed an interest in Slackware so I created an account for her on my Acer netbook running Slackware 14.1. She said she would like to use it for school projects. I let her know about Libreoffice.
The next generation of Slackers is coming.

great

1 members found this post helpful.

Like that's a major milestone that should be a wikipedia article on it's own....

1 members found this post helpful.

My 2.5 year old sees nothing but Slackware on laptops, types in libreoffice, and plays supertux and supertuxkart

2 members found this post helpful.

Awesome, hitest! I need to get my 9 year old son interested in more than games on the computer. He uses the iMac to play Minecraft, watch youtube videos, etc. However, he has decided recently that he would like to be a blacksmith when he grows up, a manly art, indeed!

1 members found this post helpful.

Unfortunately I am an epic failure in the battle for hearts and minds in my household.
My daughter and nephew , both now 20, have seen me use Slackware almost exclusively for over ten years. But in the teenage years Windows won out through the pressure of the onetime de rigeur MSN, iPods and iTunes as well as an educational system that could only cope with MS Office applications.
My partner learned to use computing on a Windows platform and simply says "I do not like Linux".

Why is there no emoticon for throwing your hands in the air in frustration?

2 members found this post helpful.

If I remember correctly, a heated argument with my (ex-)wife about a botched-up Thunderbird spellchecker installation on Slackware ended up with her moving out and filing for divorce. I suspect there were other reasons left unsaid though. Since that time I've learnt a lot about Slackware on the desktop, and now my girlfriend loves it.

2 members found this post helpful.

Ahh - Now that is some lateral thinking! Get a new family.

2 members found this post helpful.

My son is about to get a big, fat java book for his tenth birthday. He's been doing a bit of shell scripting for about a year now -but mostly creates web pages. He and the missus use opensuse on a daily basis. But he also has accounts on my homegrown systems. He needs the java background to write apps...

1 members found this post helpful.

I like the way you summarized kikinovak's story.

The problem couldn't be with Slackware/Linux, the problem must be with the family/user, so just replace them and the problem is solved.

4 members found this post helpful.

I think he'd be better off doing Python. It's far easier, and way way nicer. I'm a professional programmer (33 years - from Fortran, Pacal, Assembler, Cobol, C, etc), and I'd rather cut my wrists with a blunt spoon than use anything else other than Python.

My son was about 10 when first introduced to GNU/Linux (~'97). I introduced him to programming via PHP thinking that loose typing and a browser based GUI would get him off to an easy start, so web programming became a natural for him too.

By his 12-14th birthdays he was asking for, and got nice editions of K&R, Stroustroup and Stevens!

Since that time he has acquired a library of computer books that I am envious of and use often - and he has all but mastered them all - including Java!

Feed that kid those books!

In 1978 (I was eleven) my dad brought home two excellent computer books that were my foundation, so to speak. "Binäre Algebra" (binary algebra) and "Logische Schaltkreise" (logical circuits). I was a real nerd kid, so I brought the books along on a holiday with my grandparents. After a day of climbing trees and walking in the woods, I would sit down for hours, read through everything and then consider the exercises at the end of each chapter as a challenge.