[austinwagner]

I am thinking about getting my five year old her first computer for christmas. Allthough I had a question. I was considering buying a used PC with no OS on it, and then installing the raved Ubuntu OS on it. My only question is will it be understandable, and can I put little kiddy games on it? Like freddy fish, kinda stuff I have on XP?

Thanks.

 

[wmorri]

Re: Ubuntu Question??

Hi,

I would totally recommend getting an used computer and then putting linux on it for your daughter. That is a very novel approach, and a great way to introduce her to linux and not the confines of window. (ok i will get off my soap box now).

As for if she will be able to understand it, the real question is has she been able to use the computers that you have in your house, and does she understand what she is doing? If the answer is YES then she should be fine. It may take a little bit of learning but she should be all set. If she doesn't know how to use a computer yet, then it will be a little bit harder. I would recommend that you take a look at Edubuntu. This is an educational version of ubuntu.

I also found a program that seems to run windows and mac games on linux with a Virtual Machine. It says that Freddy Fish will work I would take a look and see what you think. SCUMMVM

Cheers!

 

[Bartender]

Do you have broadband? Linux is a pain on dial-up. We gave our test Ubuntu PC to a couple with a two-year old and one-year old (and Comcast broadband). We installed Edubuntu first. They're having a lot of fun with it. The two-year old likes to show everyone how good he's getting with the mouse. The one-year old just likes to stick his hands in there and slap the keyboard. When the kids go to bed, the PC is a perfectly functional second unit for web browsing, etc.

I didn't try installing it, but Sugar, which came out of the OLPC project, is also available on the Ubuntu repos and might be worth checking out.

Although Windows programs don't run natively on Linux, I wouldn't be surprised if some or all your games ran under WINE.
http://www.winehq.org/