I’ve built a PC out of all the spare hardware(*) I had around me. I’m planning to gift it to a person that has no resources to buy a computer, and no knowledge on them. She has a 9 y.o. son that regularly uses a generic (almost-disposable) chinese android tablet.
As my uncle started me off gifting me a knoppix CD back in the early 2000’s, I want to give the gift of linux to a kid that never had a proper desktop PC.
Today I’ve been researching the different distros focused on kids and learning and wanted to hear from the L1T community any opinions on which would be better.
Because of the considerations listed below, for the time being I’m considering going with EndlessOS, even if it’s not kid-focused. If you have experience with it and want to share any tips on setting it up and tweaking it, please do!
Caveats/considerations:
The parents won’t be able to help/fix the computer. they never used a desktop PC.
The main user will be a 9 years old kid with no computer literacy and no english knowledge.
Focus on help on homework, education and referencing, edutainment, gaming.
The only internet connection available is a rather expensive per megabyte tethered 3g phone.
(*) Hardware:
Samsung SyncMaster933 1366x768 LCD
Vitsuba 500W PSU
Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L motherboard
Intel Core2Duo E7500
Intel integrated graphics
4GB DDR2 800 RAM
SATA WD Green 5400RPM 320GB
SATA Samsung 7200RPM 320GB
IDE DVD+RW Drive
3.5" multi card reader
ENCORE PCI WiFi Card + TPLINK External SMA 7dbi antenna
I feel like this would be the biggest hurdle here. Mainly because it would be nice to tailor the environment to the kid, but on the other hand, you’re going to have to support it. If you do not share the kid’s language, then there are fun times ahead for someone.
Otherwise, this is the perfect scenario for a Linux build. I think your best bet here would be Ubuntu (specifically Ubuntu Gnome, since that’s where Ubuntu is moving to). I don’t have any recommendations on educational games, but I should since my kids also use Ubuntu. So I may come back to this thread in a day or two with some recommendations there.
Manjaro or Solus for the clean & beginner-friendly environment and system overall. With a lts kernel.
Whatever else is needed you install yourself. Libreoffice, etc. Make it gnome3 and put everything in the taskbar. Teach the user to only use the taskbar.
Give the environment an even better feel, by tweaking etc.
Endless is certainly a good choice whenever an Internet connection is sketchy, or non-existent. I’m not sure what their language support looks like though, or if their forum will have the desired language support.
I’m not sure what to suggest, so I’m just thinking out loud. Questions, concerns and configuration issues are bound to creep up. If this person, who is new to Linux, will not have access to the Internet / forums to research problems, issues, or questions, then perhaps you should consider what Linux books can be had in the desired language? Books on “the big distros,” such as Ubuntu, for instance should be readily available in a wide selection of languages. So to make a long story short, I would suggest that you don’t forget to consider the type of support that may be available when deciding on a distribution. Then again, having never used Endless myself, perhaps their built-in help is already sufficiently comprehensive?
Whatever you install, you’ll obviously want a lightweight desktop, such as Mate, Xfce, LXDE, LXQT, etc. These also have the benefit of not being dramatically different than the Windows paradigm, in terms of the menu system. Hopefully Endless will work for you, but if you need to go more mainstream, something along the lines of Ubuntu Mate, or Mint Xfce are both lightweight and user friendly. Again, just thinking out loud, as I have never had to address this combination of requirements.
First of all, thanks for the love and the quick responses.
ATM I’m finishing the build and burning endless on a USB drive for a test-drive. I switched at the last moment and I’m giving away my older pc case (I customized the heck out of it) and if it behaves, my AMD HD4850X 1gb PCIe card.
I’m fluent in english (or at least I think I am) but I’m from Argentina, so my main language is Spanish. One of the reasons of choosing Endless over edubuntu, sugar, debian+pixel is the lack of internet and that the ISO downloaded (14gb the full version) is already localised at the time of download. I chose Spanish (mexico) but there’s also Spanish (Guatemala) and plain Spanish.
My HDD when I started was about 2GB total and 650mb worth of Encarta '97, so having 320gb for this kid will be a boon to download offline versions of wikipedia and stack exchange, along with any topics I might throw in there. Found out about it on a video from Bryan Lunduke (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIaBeoqEmMQ)
Manjaro is nice but if you’re not really into it you can break it quite easily, even with something as simple as installing something or updating.
I’m using solus on my main machine but I’d never use it for this case. As much as I love Solus, there’s barely no edutainment/education software.
EDIT:
Remember guys, this is for a 9yo that NEVER had a PC, nor his parents.
Once the case is finished I’ll take a few pics of the finished build
still open for alternative distros, kids stuff recommendations, tweaks, et al.
I would recommend Debian Gnu/Linux just because localization, stable software releases and security updates for the stable and testing branches. Debian is pretty good for beginners (Hell, Ubuntu is based on Debian) and you can download the whole repo on 3 DVDs with internationalization available on install, because you know, it is “… the universal OS…” Also, there are plenty of Educational packages in there like dictionaries, typing tutors, math games, and etc. My nephew’s first experience with computing was with Debian.
I have never used Endless so I cannot speak on that. Just make sure that there are enough applications to keep him busy, in his language.
It’s a fork of Gnome-shell. For what I’ve been toying around it’s really similar to an Android experience, which is great since that’s what the kid uses. Looks like it’s normal debian-gnome CPU and RAM usage (around 750mb cached for gnome desktop). Even from a usb2 live session it worked fine. Crossing my fingers to see it working fine after installing/updating/tweaking!
Did not know this. That is definitely a good design. The ability to roll back and or completely remove without affecting the core system will definitely be useful in the beginning days until the kid gets some technical bearings.
Looks like you made the right choice. Given the vast resources available offline with that OS, I think the main thing will be digging out the good programs that would be useful and educational. I’m always hunting around and occasionally come across a program I wish I had found 3 years ago.
Is there a place that has a list of the packages it contains? I just spent way too long trying to find one to see if it had things I could recommend and got nowhere. I did download the full version and have been seeding the torrent. I have no internet on my property and thought it would be handy to use once I start spending more time out there since I probably won’t be getting internet piped in unless I permanently move there. I guess I will just have to install it and dig through it that way.
Gave my secondary desktop to my 11 yo nephew so he could have a machine of his own, threw ubuntu on it and he’s been able to use it.
Now he wants win10 for xmas and I no longer have a nephew.
lol
Those are some pretty sick specs for a first pc,
Install some SOURCE games
I started playing Half Life around that age, some portal would be awesome aswell, and trackmania (if it supports linux)(is free anyway).
I was about that age when I was first introduced into Linux. A friend of my parents gave me a Knoppix 3.5 Live CD which ran ok with a 200MB swap file on my Pentium III box. KDE looked sooo cool compared to Windows 98 and it came with a great collection of small games, like Frozen Bubble, Kartoffel, KSokoban, KAstroids…
Probably a good idea to raise them knowing that something other then Windows exists.
