On Sat, 23 Dec 2006 17:18:51 -0600, notbob wrote:

> My granddaughters are getting pc for Christmas. It will be an old PIII
> with just the basics, CDROM and music apps and kids games, no network
> capability for now. Naturally, I want it to be a Slack box, that being
> the easiest for me to admin. But, I was thinking maybe going with
> edubuntu, at least until I can see what it has to offer and then maybe
> getting the apps, games, etc, and setting up a slack equivalent. Anyone
> with kid/slack experience/advice?

Notbob,
Personal practical knowledge. I teach a gr. 7/8 class and I have had a 23
machine linux lan set up in my room for the last 8 years. Currently all
but 2 machines are Slack 11. 2 XP machines were donations so I've kept
those as is. The kids pay as much attention to the OS as we did to the
pencil and paper we used as young students i.e., they don't. The machine,
like the pencil and paper, is a tool to get things done. Work is emailed
back and forth to themselves and me in html format ergo no compatibility
problems between home and school -just the way Berners-Lee intended. And
when it's time to play during rainy recesses, they love the games that are
available to them. My life as sysadmin is simple. No viruses. No
downloading and installing WinCrap. Hell I've even set up a Slack 11 box
for my 70 year old mother-in-law and the phone hasn't rung for a service
call for months now. Previously if I saw her number on the call display
I'd answer "Micro---t help line. What's broken today?"

Be bold. Do it. Slack just works and the kids just get it.

CBFalconer wrote:

> Just PLONK and ignore him. That way the rest of us don't have to
> see his silly vituperations, and he won't be amused and encouraged.
>

You're right, of course. Sometimes it's just hard to resist. New Year's
Resolution - Don't Feed The Trolls.

Ian

Ian Bell <ruffrecords@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> rm@biteme.org wrote:
>> notbob <notbob@nothome.com> wrote:

>>> My granddaughters are getting pc for Christmas. It will be an
>>> old PIII with just the basics, CDROM and music apps and kids
>>> games, no network capability for now. Naturally, I want it to
>>> be a Slack box, that being the easiest for me to admin.

>> And making it impossible for anyone else in the family to admin,
>> right, asshole? Naturally.

> Dear oh dear, another reply riddled with assumptions and lack of
> tact. The fact of the matter is that 99.9% of the population
> cannot admin a PC (whatever the OS). If the OP can than then he
> and his family are better off than most.

Nonsense. Every family has a member or at least a friend who is a
PC "guru". Not so with linux, though. Look at your own family.
There is nobody in your family who could admin a linux OS, now is
there?

Kids like games. And which games are the "best" are determined by
the kids through word of mouth. Kids stuck with a linux machine
will never be able to play the popular games and those games are the
only games kids want to play. And in the case of Windoze games that
are actually compiled for linux, that compilation is done long after
the game has faded from even marginal popularity.

Giving kids a linux machine is really, really, stupid. But it is
entirely consistent with the thinking of the linux zealot, who can't
think at a triple digit IQ level.

cordially, as always,

rm

CBFalconer <cbfalconer@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Just PLONK and ignore him. That way the rest of us don't have to
> see his silly vituperations, and he won't be amused and encouraged.

Where on earth did you get the idea that you are one of an "us?"

Killfiled for 28 days for linux zealotry.

cordially, as always,

rm

vtcodger <Donald.Kenney@gmail.com> wrote:
> notbob wrote:

>> My granddaughters are getting pc for Christmas. It will be an old
>> PIII with just the basics, CDROM and music apps and kids games, no
>> network capability for now. Naturally, I want it to be a Slack box,
>
> This is not going to be a popular opinion here, but as an ex-K-8 school
> computer tech, I have to recommend considering Windows for this
> application.

And the reason it won't be too popular is because it is a reasonable
observation and the zealots in this neighbourhood are afraid of
being reasonable.

> Problem is that way too much of the software that to kids might
> want to run is only available for Windows (and often barely runs
> there). An old box is probably going to be too limited to run
> virtual machines, and WINE looks to me like a better bet for an
> office environment where there will be only a handful of Windows
> aps that have to be run somehow.

This is all true and quite obvious.

> If you are sure that the system just needs to do web browsing,
> word processing and play a few simple games, and if there is
> enough memory to run a Linux GUI without ghastly delays, disregard
> my suggestion and use Slackware.

Nope. If you want kids to do web-browsing and wordprocessing you
want them to be using the same stuff they see at school. You don't
want kids running a primitive OS modeled after something that is
older than their parents.

> It's up to you of course, but at the very least, I'd consider
> setting up a dual boot (LOADLIN is often the least painful way)
> with Windows 9 -- assuming that the boxes come with Windows 9
> installed.

What is Windows 9? Do you mean 95 or 98? In our opinion, the
minimum M$ OS that should be installed is M$ 2000.

cordially, as always,

rm

mr.b <mist@b.com> wrote:

> Notbob,
> Personal practical knowledge. I teach a gr. 7/8 class and I have
> had a 23 machine linux lan set up in my room for the last 8 years.
> Currently all but 2 machines are Slack 11. 2 XP machines were
> donations so I've kept those as is. The kids pay as much
> attention to the OS as we did to the pencil and paper we used as
> young students i.e., they don't. The machine, like the pencil and
> paper, is a tool to get things done. Work is emailed back and
> forth to themselves and me in html format ergo no compatibility
> problems between home and school -just the way Berners-Lee
> intended. And when it's time to play during rainy recesses, they
> love the games that are available to them. My life as sysadmin is
> simple. No viruses. No

As a linux zealot, you most certainly live in a fantasy world. The
most important reason for computers as far as kids are concerned is
to run the latest games. And those games will never run on a linux
machine. If the kids play with the linux stuff you have it is
because they don't have a choice.

> downloading and installing WinCrap. Hell I've even set up a Slack 11 box
> for my 70 year old mother-in-law and the phone hasn't rung for a service
> call for months now.

That's probably because she no longer goes anywhere near her
computer. Either that or she got a real computer guy to install the
latest version of M$ and she is too embarrassed to tell you about
it.

> Previously if I saw her number on the call display I'd answer
> "Micro---t help line. What's broken today?"

That must have made her feel good.

You're an asshole. And you are killfiled for 28 days.

cordially, even to linux zealots,

rm

Ian Bell <ruffrecords@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> CBFalconer wrote:
>
>> Just PLONK and ignore him. That way the rest of us don't have to
>> see his silly vituperations, and he won't be amused and encouraged.
>>
>
> You're right, of course. Sometimes it's just hard to resist. New Year's
> Resolution - Don't Feed The Trolls.

And in telling us this, you actually fed a troll who is ensconced,
for 28 days at least, in our killfile.

CBFalconer is a troll and he has never contributed anything of value
to this, or any other newsgroup. Check it out yourself. Use Google.

cordially, as always,

rm

On Sun, 24 Dec 2006 03:53:09 +0000, rm wrote:

> notbob <notbob@nothome.com> wrote:
>
>> My granddaughters are getting pc for Christmas. It will be an old
>> PIII with just the basics, CDROM and music apps and kids games, no
>> network capability for now. Naturally, I want it to be a Slack
>> box, that being the easiest for me to admin.
>
> And making it impossible for anyone else in the family to admin,
> right, asshole? Naturally.

Why is that? All that is needed for other family members to do admin
functions is a 'sudo' account.

>
> Some people will go to any lengths to be "needed."
>
> cordially, as always,
>
> rm

On 2006-12-24, rm@biteme.org <rm@biteme.org> wrote:
>
> As a linux zealot, you most certainly live in a fantasy world. The
> most important reason for computers as far as kids are concerned is
> to run the latest games. And those games will never run on a linux
> machine. If the kids play with the linux stuff you have it is
> because they don't have a choice.


If your goal is to cater to the majority of kids' desires to play
some mindless games constantly, then perhaps you're correct. However,
if he prefers that the children have games to occupy them occasionally
while still fostering intellectual curiosity, then I see absolutely no
reason why they shouldn't have a *nix operating system installed.
They can use it to do all of the common tasks (browsing, mail, document
creating/editing, etcetera) that most people do, and they might even
learn a thing or two about something besides Windows.

RW

--

http://rlworkman.net

Le Sun, 24 Dec 2006 18:50:07 -0700, ray a écrit*:

> On Sun, 24 Dec 2006 03:53:09 +0000, rm wrote:
>
>> notbob <notbob@nothome.com> wrote:
>>
>>> My granddaughters are getting pc for Christmas. It will be an old
>>> PIII with just the basics, CDROM and music apps and kids games, no
>>> network capability for now. Naturally, I want it to be a Slack
>>> box, that being the easiest for me to admin.
>>
>> And making it impossible for anyone else in the family to admin,
>> right, asshole? Naturally.
>
> Why is that? All that is needed for other family members to do admin
> functions is a 'sudo' account.

I'd say you missed a somewhat hidden, but real, point in 'rm's post,
that when you start giving 'sudo' accounts to any user there's not much
advantage to make them use Linux, they will suffer the disadvantage of
using a system they probably don't know yet and the other admins/users
will suffer the same problems the ~OS has.

Some of the ~OS hitorical glitches include these samples :

W9x gave the ability to anyone to kill directly the OS, the HD and
play interesting games with user data.
W2K did the best to persuade people they needed 4 successive 6 week
8 dishes of pseudo formation in Redmonders documentation reading
distortion effects.
WXP added a kiddy interface so that the next generation won't get
lost a minute when they put the GB in the attic.
SP2 achieved the ideal defense wall, now most programs have to
run as "'`Administrator`'" if they need any access to any device
like screeen rez, CD, DVD, well, I admit they still can't block a
USB thumbdrive, that'll come ;D)


Now...

Happy new year to anyone, any old time :-) (put the CapsOn when needed)