Having just bought my wife a 24″ iMac for her birthday, I’ve got a nice Dell PC ready to do something with. I figure since my son is now 4, he’s ready for his first computer of his own (I think I was 8 when my Dad passed his Apple ][ down to me). I’m taking the Windows XP license off of that computer so my wife can run Parallels with it so I figure Linux is a good choice for him. I’ve looked at Edubuntu a couple times and it appears like it will be perfect for him, but I’m wondering if anyone else have any experience using it. Should I bother or would it be better to just install Ubuntu itself?
13 responses so far ↓
1
carlos
// Apr 12, 2007 at 9:34 am
I know nothing about the Linux world but you may want to have a read over this post I found on another blog I read regularly.
http://www.worldwidewatercooler.com/2007/04/09/taking-back-monday/
2
matt
// Apr 12, 2007 at 9:55 am
I have a vm of edubuntu, let me 4 year old daughter use it (she’s now 5). She enjoyed it, but the games and apps at the time were either way too beginner or way too advanced, so we went back to letting her play online games, but now that you bring it up I may fire it up for her again.
It’s pretty well made and has a pretty diverse selection of games and applications.
3
MK
// Apr 12, 2007 at 7:21 pm
I think its like ubuntu whereby the install CD can be used like as a LiveCD so you can test it out without installing it to your harddrive. If you don’t like it nothing lost and you find out if you have any problems with drivers.
I think I might be getting my first Linux box if Dell starts selling them at a good price. I’m going to VM my old XP and should have the best of both worlds with VMWare Server.
4
Ryan Morgan
// Apr 13, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Showing my ignorance, and stating the obvious: Any way to install both and choose which one to use on startup?
5
Chad
// Apr 15, 2007 at 8:23 am
@Ryan
In that case.. just have two liveCDs or use VMWare Server.
6
Elwood Jetson
// Apr 16, 2007 at 12:36 am
Yes, my daughter uses Edubuntu, and it has some stuff that makes it appealing to kids. There are several basic, safe games, and some of the great KDE Edutainment apps. I would recommend it.
7
Downbeat
// Apr 16, 2007 at 1:26 am
Get the *real* Debian and install the kids-stuff for yourself. Ubuntu is a sponsored-less-discussion-in-versioning-unified-desktop-Debian and a big marketing gadget.
8
Petz
// Apr 16, 2007 at 1:59 am
Downbeat: Maybe some people dont care about having to install everything seperately and do not necessarly have the time and energy to dive into linux big way. I like Ubuntu because it is relatively easy to use, without having to first understand all of the concepts from linux that differ from the windows world.
9
nadcon
// Apr 16, 2007 at 10:43 am
Having just bought my wife a 24″
oh, you mean a monitor. whew, for a minute there….
10
carlos
// Apr 17, 2007 at 9:21 am
Lifehacker has some links to making Ubuntu run faster, if you are interested.
http://lifehacker.com/software/ubuntu/make-ubuntu-linux-run-faster-252867.php
Cheers
11
Roger
// Apr 17, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Legally that Windows XP license is only for the original OEM hardware and cannot be transferred. You need to purchase a separate XP license to run on the Mac using Parallels. You might instead consider using “Crossover for Mac” from Codeweavers to run Windows software on OS X without having to purchase WinXP.
12
James Fee
// Apr 17, 2007 at 2:25 pm
That Dell came with XP Home which is OEM, but I don’t use it. It has a full XP Pro license on it that I bought at a later date.
13
Pego
// May 7, 2007 at 5:44 am
Re: choice at start-up
Yesterday defraged XP (80GB), partitionmagicked -12GB, in the 12GB installed EDUBUNTU (”/”root 11,5GB+swap 512MB partitions added to the freed 12GB). At startup you get the “Choose operating system to start” menu with XP/EDUBUNTU/MEMTEST/EDUBUNTU recovery.
Runs really nice on this 1GHz Celeron w/320MB RAM. Great soft for kids too…
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