Comments on: Edubuntu – A real life experiment – Linux and a 9 year old

By: An open letter to the Linux community about customers - Jason Burns’ Blog

An open letter to the Linux community about customers - Jason Burns’ Blog — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 00:17:18 +0000

[...] my conversation with my Walrus buddy, we were talking about an experiment I pulled a few years ago. I switched my son’s computer over to the Edubuntu flavor of Ubuntu in order to see how he fared with Linux at 9. Andy had a [...]

By: Gabriel

Gabriel — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 03:40:41 +0000

Try the “Little” Debian. It runs like a rocket — even on a really very, VERY old PC (i.e 486 with 32 MB of memory).

You can download the Little Debian at http://littledebian.pbwiki.com

By: Jolly Joice

Jolly Joice — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 22:29:31 +0000

I’m struggling to sort out edubuntu on an old 550Mhz system with 64mb ram. It’s taken 3+ hours to install – prob because of the low memory – and takes over 7 minutes to boot up. Our lad – a Linux geek – is trying to install the basic Ubuntu on a 350Mhz system as we speak. Need to get it to go faster without buying more memory as we are considering this as a strong option for our project schools and groups in Ghana. They are using Win98 at the moment under the Microsoft FreshStart scheme. Would prefer Edubuntu for obvious reasons if it will run – rather than crawl – with 300Mhz systems and 32 or 64 mb ram. These are the typer of systems that we are getting donated and have out there. Is there s lightweight version of Linux that’s easy to use.load etc….????

By: Nathan Haines

Nathan Haines — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 06:07:20 +0000

I set up Edubuntu on an old computer here and gave it to my goddaughter for Christmas last year. She was three, but was used to playing with preschool learning software with her mom and grandparents. I wanted her to be able to just explore without fear of breaking anything. She loved GCompris and learned how to use the mouse, and fell in love with TuxPaint (and Tux!). She just turned 4, but by the time summer rolled around she’d taught herself how to turn the computer on, log in with her name and password, start GCompris, find any game she wanted, and double-click to play some of her favorite songs I left for her on her desktop.

I figure between her grandparents’ Windows box and my and her mom’s Ubuntu boxes, she’ll be able to handle anything. In the meantime, she has a standard environment all of her own she can explore and learn about, and which I can duplicate with a LiveCD and any computer, or a thin terminal, or my laptop in a pinch.

Good luck, I have my fingers crossed for the three of you!

By: iHax

iHax — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 02:57:35 +0000

I’ve been using Linux since I was 8, and still love it (I installed it myself Best of luck to your son!

By: MarkT9

MarkT9 — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 01:17:35 +0000

My 8 year old boy has a hand me down pc in his room running Edubuntu. I set up MythTV frontend so he can connect to my MythTV backend server and watch the TV shows I have recorded for him when ever he wants on his computer screen. No need for a tv and I easily control what choices he has available. He sends email to me and my wife, plays songs and videos. Most of the web sites he goes to use Flash these days which works fine. I don’t have to worry about viruses or trojans infecting him. There are a number of free educational games available with a few simple clicks. Plus any other program you can think of…all legally free.

We have a xbox and ps2 for games if he is good. Anyone that says you can’t play games as well as you can on Windows does not really have your kid’s best interest at heart. When my kid goes to a friend’s house he has no problem using their computer. When my kid’s friends come over, they are in awe in what my son can do.

I think my kid that can handle Linux will be valuable to any company in a few more years, because if you can run Linux, you can pickup Windows if you have to, but if you know Windows, you don’t know anything.

PS, the 7 year old girl can run it too, but more interested in baby dolls than computers right now.

By: jimbo

jimbo — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 19:54:45 +0000

I’m stumbled across this article from Digg, and I’m very curious to see how this goes.

I have an 11 year old who has a fledgeling interest in linux (he had kubuntu installed for about 3 months) but strongly prefers Windows because of the availability of commercial games. We tried using Wine and Cadega, with very mixed results, and it ultimately became so frustrating for him that I broke down and reinstalled windows.

Trying to get him into many games available for linux was also a challenge–he regarded them as a sort of “brand X” knockoff to a “real” game that he wanted to play.

I realize that you may not face the same challenges in your case, since the hardware he’s using would rule out many games regardless of the OS, but I’d really appreciate it if you would share your experiences along these lines, as well.

I’ll be watching with interest.

kisses,

jimbo

By: Uri

Uri — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 15:56:20 +0000

The One Laptop Per Child is an educational project, targeting not only developing countries, btw.

But I also think it is misleading to describe India, Brazil and Taiwan as 3rd world couturiers.

The more relevant term is “developing countries”. “3rd world” is really a western bias, which has nothing to do with helping describe the differences, and though based on economical factors, misses the point.

Some the countries where OLPC will be used, exploit emerging technologies much faster then us in the west, where we are mostly stuck with proprietary restrictive technologies and are convinced by the media that if it has a price tag, it is superior. And I’m saying this as and Israeli, where Hi Tech industries are quite advanced.

Thanks for a great post,
Uri

By: Bradley

Bradley — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 10:00:15 +0000

Just wanted to say good luck. I am a linux fan and and have two kids of my own, 4 & 2 and I was considering installing Edubuntu on my pc at home as well for my kids to experiment on. So I hope Andy enjoys Linux, I will be popping in from time to time to check out his progress.