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Author Topic: OS recommendations for 10-year old?  (Read 3905 times)

Ant

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OS recommendations for 10-year old?
« on: September 06, 2013, 01:20:57 pm »
...so yeah, my eldest has reached "venerable" 10 years and is moaning for a laptop. Sure, she'll need it for schoolwork soon enough, and the main computer could be freed from gaming to other uses (yeah right). I'll be damned before I'll buy her some crappy iPad etc., so she has to settle for my old laptop (that's only 2 years senior to her). Now, problem raises it's ugly noggin: the damned thing has not only Vista, but also screwed-up Ubuntu I put into it some 4 years ago as I tried to get something working on the damned thing. So everything must go, format c: and so forth. And now it is time to decide on new OS, but which? I seriously doubt the old machine is good enough for 7, and XP disks elude me at the moment. I can do basic Ubuntu, but not much more. Are there any more (perferably free) alternatives, and which could be considered for beginner who hasn't used anything but 7's desktop icons? All opinions are welcome, of course.
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Darvi

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Re: OS recommendations for 10-year old?
« Reply #1 on: September 06, 2013, 01:53:26 pm »
Windows ME for maximum trolling.
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quinnr

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Re: OS recommendations for 10-year old?
« Reply #2 on: September 06, 2013, 01:55:45 pm »
For a very easy to use (but probably not as customizable) system, you can take a look at the OS used by One Laptop a Child. My little brother used this one for a bit.

However, I'd also take a look at Qimo, another Linux distro geared towards kids.
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10ebbor10

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Re: OS recommendations for 10-year old?
« Reply #3 on: September 06, 2013, 01:56:22 pm »
XP seems like the best solution. Stable, fairly cheap and decent.
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Aquathug

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Re: OS recommendations for 10-year old?
« Reply #4 on: September 06, 2013, 01:58:10 pm »
LFS is always a blast  :D
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MonkeyHead

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Re: OS recommendations for 10-year old?
« Reply #5 on: September 06, 2013, 01:58:58 pm »
My 6 year old and 3 year old kids both use android devices with ease.
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Aptus

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Re: OS recommendations for 10-year old?
« Reply #6 on: September 06, 2013, 02:16:00 pm »
Solaris!

Arch Linux!

RSTS/E!

On a serious note though, I'd give her Linux Mint or I guess Windows XP (for such an old computer).
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Ant

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Re: OS recommendations for 10-year old?
« Reply #7 on: September 06, 2013, 02:47:06 pm »
Mint looks quite intresting, especially with KDE. Might roll with that one unless I'll find that XP disk anytime soon... The Qimo and Sugar look little too restricted at first glance, although I'll take deeper look into them later on. Andy might be okay, but I'm worried about performance (my phone's got mostly better specs than the laptop :P ). Thanks for everyone, the issue ain't too much in the priorities list so it might take some time before I actually do anything about this thing, so all opinions and suggestions are good and welcome :)
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Bouchart

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Re: OS recommendations for 10-year old?
« Reply #8 on: September 06, 2013, 02:53:10 pm »
I grew up using the command line in DOS.  Should work fine for your kid.
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Tellemurius

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Re: OS recommendations for 10-year old?
« Reply #9 on: September 06, 2013, 03:01:26 pm »
Quote from: Bouchart on September 06, 2013, 02:53:10 pm
I grew up using the command line in DOS.  Should work fine for your kid.
this, this please, keep this alive.
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Ant

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Re: OS recommendations for 10-year old?
« Reply #10 on: September 06, 2013, 03:09:35 pm »
Quote from: Tellemurius on September 06, 2013, 03:01:26 pm
Quote from: Bouchart on September 06, 2013, 02:53:10 pm
I grew up using the command line in DOS.  Should work fine for your kid.
this, this please, keep this alive.

Yeah, was thinking about the same :) Now to scrounge DOS disks from somewhere... Hey, where's the floppy drive?
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shadenight123

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Re: OS recommendations for 10-year old?
« Reply #11 on: September 06, 2013, 04:31:50 pm »
Uhm...
Easy for kids...
easy for kids...

Windows 8?

That said...

Any apple OS? I mean, they give the guys a single button on the mouse because two is too damn difficult for them...

...

All right, seriously though, I'd recommend either Seven or Xp. try to install seven first though, the computer might run it just fine. (It would surprise you just how much 'fine' Seven runs)
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Muz

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Re: OS recommendations for 10-year old?
« Reply #12 on: September 07, 2013, 01:00:04 am »
Just give her Ubuntu. Kids will learn anything quickly. Especially if they want to play games on it. Teach her how to play Dwarf Fortress and Dungeon Crawl, and get her to learn to use WINE for the good stuff.

She'll probably grow up to be very IT savvy if left to figure out a fairly tough OS like Ubuntu.
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Alastar

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Re: OS recommendations for 10-year old?
« Reply #13 on: September 07, 2013, 03:40:04 am »
If it's an older laptop that wouldn't run Windows 7 comfortably...
may I suggest Crunchbang?

It's a semi-lightweight Debian spin and as such very stable, tends to work well out of the box, has friendly GUIs for basic needs but is still simple/transparent enough to appeal to nascent nerds (imo, kids deal better with things they can understand. Leave the dumbed-down stuff to adults who don't have the time/inclination to do things properly. Also, I think having kids learn to use a computer like a computer and not like an appliance is a worthwhile goal in its own right).
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Rattleme

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Re: OS recommendations for 10-year old?
« Reply #14 on: September 07, 2013, 07:05:43 pm »
It would help if we had the laptops specs because my 1.6 ghz, 2gb ram laptop runs 64 bit Windows 7 just as good as XP and better than the Windows os that shall not be named.
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