Need an OS recommendation for children.

[willie]

I thought this was what Sugar (the OLPC desktop) was for.  I'd be less worried about the client OS than about exposing her to the pervasive creepiness and tracking on the internet though.  At minimum I'd set up an aggressively configured firewall and adblock.

 

[fisle]

and has me helping her learn perl.

That's evil. Teach her some python or ruby for maximum hipsterness

edit: oh right except nodejs is the shit nowadays right?

 

[Aldryic C'boas]

...since when is perl 'hipster'? O_ô

In any case, I started her on bash and perl to enforce good coding habits.  Once she has those, she can branch out easily into any other language she wants to learn.

 

[fisle]

...since when it perl 'hipster'? O_ô

In any case, I started her on bash and perl to enforce good coding habits.  Once she has those, she can branch out easily into any other language she wants to learn.

I mean you're being evil teaching her perl, and jokingly suggested the hipsterish ones

 

[dano]

+1 for Qimo -- let the 5-6 year olds play around with it, and they seemed to like the games. Their instance of Qimo is not connected to the net and just runs as a virtualbox vm with Linux Mint as the host os. 

 

[jarland]

Sounds like sticking with windows is the best idea. If she's familiar with it you're preparing her to do well in school and that continued practice is great. Locking down windows is possible. Sandbox everything with sandboxie and keep a solid antivirus anyway, worth paying for a good one like ESET. Use browser plugins to control environment and lock it down so the plugins can't be toyed with, Firefox has so much in their about:config I'm sure it's possible.

 

[joepie91]

Luckily my daughter is only 3 so all of the games she plays are flash based and she doesn't know the difference between Windows/Linux/Android yet.

When she's older she's welcome to install whatever OS she wants but for now I want her to have some exposure to linux.

You'll want to make sure to have PlayOnLinux installed. Just in case at some point she wants to play Windows games

 

[texteditor]

and has me helping her learn perl.

that's it, I'm calling CPS on you.

 

[Raymii]

Have you looked at Linux Mint? It just works, and also has some parental controls.

 

[Magiobiwan]

Sounds like sticking with windows is the best idea. If she's familiar with it you're preparing her to do well in school and that continued practice is great. Locking down windows is possible. Sandbox everything with sandboxie and keep a solid antivirus anyway, worth paying for a good one like ESET. Use browser plugins to control environment and lock it down so the plugins can't be toyed with, Firefox has so much in their about:config I'm sure it's possible.

This may be the best idea. Schools tend to use Windows exclusively, as well as MS Office rather than Linux and LibreOffice/OpenOffice. I'm all for the adoption of Linux as a Desktop OS, but Windows DOES have the majority of the market share for a reason. 

 

[joepie91]

but Windows DOES have the majority of the market share for a reason. 

Yes, that reason primarily being artificial vendor lock-in through "school programmes" by Microsoft - exactly the kind of thing you're encouraging here.

 

[jarland]

Yes, that reason primarily being artificial vendor lock-in through "school programmes" by Microsoft - exactly the kind of thing you're encouraging here.

Encouraging a handicap on children is not the way to change that, if such is your desire. Anyone who has mixed in OpenOffice in a high school system knows that it can't be done by inching it in, it either has to be changed at home and all school computers at once or it creates headaches and missed homework assignments. Been there done that. Did the best I could, I caused more harm than good. You can't force everyone to a new standard unless you're willing to fire them for refusing to adopt it, not something the student can do.

Kids need to know windows and Microsoft office for school, at least in the US, and that's the way it is. It cannot be changed by one student, as the only message that student will send in that school is "I have chosen a handicap and I will not be turning in my homework to your exact specifications."


Keep in mind I'm not saying that I like it, but rejecting standards on principle at the expense of your success only weakens your voice and lowers your chances of rising to a position to influence it in a way that has the potential of working. Take a crazy example of a homeless guy who morally opposes housing, and everyone thinks he's crazy so he has no real voice. Then take the senator who opposes housing, his influence is higher.


Sorry to go off topic, just sharing my view on why it's important to prepare children for the reality ahead of them so that they can function in society. When they pick a profession as they grow, they can influence change from the platform they have worked to stand on. Society does not always reward rebels.

 

[DomainBop]

Kids need to know windows and Microsoft office for school, at least in the US, and that's the way it is.

I didn't know Windows as a child or young adult in the US (and I didn't even have a computer), and I can honestly say it caused absolutely no problem at all in either high school or college. 

first  person to call me grandpa dies

 

[jarland]

I didn't know Windows as a child or young adult in the US (and I didn't even have a computer), and I can honestly say it caused absolutely no problem at all in either high school or college.

first person to call me grandpa dies

Not sure how old you are but times are changing. When you can turn in a word document for homework and your OpenOffice document is misread by word on the day the assignment is due, with formatting specifications required for the grade, you might be out of luck. Your work is only as good as it can be viewed by the teacher that judges it. They'll teach office and windows in school now, so you don't need to know it beforehand, but you will be ahead of the curve by sticking with it and being prepared beforehand, as is usually true with most educational topics.

 

[joepie91]

Encouraging a handicap on children is not the way to change that, if such is your desire. Anyone who has mixed in OpenOffice in a high school system knows that it can't be done by inching it in, it either has to be changed at home and all school computers at once or it creates headaches and missed homework assignments. Been there done that. Did the best I could, I caused more harm than good. You can't force everyone to a new standard unless you're willing to fire them for refusing to adopt it, not something the student can do.


Kids need to know windows and Microsoft office for school, at least in the US, and that's the way it is. It cannot be changed by one student, as the only message that student will send in that school is "I have chosen a handicap and I will not be turning in my homework to your exact specifications."


Keep in mind I'm not saying that I like it, but rejecting standards on principle at the expense of your success only weakens your voice and lowers your chances of rising to a position to influence it in a way that has the potential of working. Take a crazy example of a homeless guy who morally opposes housing, and everyone thinks he's crazy so he has no real voice. Then take the senator who opposes housing, his influence is higher.


Sorry to go off topic, just sharing my view on why it's important to prepare children for the reality ahead of them so that they can function in society. When they pick a profession as they grow, they can influence change from the platform they have worked to stand on. Society does not always reward rebels.

I've used Linux and OpenOffice while in school, and I've had zero issues.

 

[jarland]

I've used Linux and OpenOffice while in school, and I've had zero issues.

You also don't live in the US so there may be a different culture that makes the situation a bit better. However there are formatting issues often between the two.

 

[KuJoe]

Anybody can use Windows, especially Windows 8. It's also worth mentioning that my daughter most likely will be home schooled but even if she isn't, I doubt she'll be using any of the current or upcoming versions of Windows. Also, Office online is pretty nice these days.

 

[jarland]

Anybody can use Windows, especially Windows 8. It's also worth mentioning that my daughter most likely will be home schooled but even if she isn't, I doubt she'll be using any of the current or upcoming versions of Windows. Also, Office online is pretty nice these days.

Awesome. If you're disciplined and you can do it, so much better than public schools.

 

[raindog308]

All this is interesting but let's got down to real issues here.

For a 4-year-old: OvZ or Xen or KVM?

 

[javaj]

My daughter just turned 3 years old this week and I'm looking to install a new OS on her netbook since she's been getting more and more familiar with Windows 7 to the point that she can use Chrome fairly well and I'm afraid of some of the trouble she can get into on a Windows OS (she's already ordered things off Amazon in the past, luckily Amazon is extremely nice about refunding digital content because each season of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is $75-$120 each).

Crazy - I just had my 5 year old daughter do the same exact thing on prime about 3 weeks ago, I never even noticed it at first because I use an old email address for Amazon and I hardly ever check it, it wasn't until I checked my bank account that I noticed I had over 5 overdrafts and a very very negative balance. I just about shit. I was just minding my own business that day just coding away while she was sitting at the desk next to me on my laptop putting us on the road to financial ruin...  But yeah, I agree, Amazon is really good about it and reversed all transactions so my bank gave me back my original balance and cancelled all the overdrafts.

As far as OS, I installed Mint awhile ago on another computer she was using before, because my ex decided the Antivirus on windows 7 was ...in here words "Annoying" and kept turning it off so she could download every piece of malware on the internet... But my daughter who was 4 at the time had no problems with Mint, worked just fine and she adapted to it right away, and its pretty amazing how much they pick up so early. So yeah, mint worked for us, but I think any *nix OS with an intuitive UI would work.