Re: task-jr available for testing
On Fri, Dec 22, 2000 at 02:13:26AM +0000, John Gay wrote:
> Sorry for the silence. I was expecting this would be what was listed in
> the site for already packaged.
Nope. Not yet. I'm taking the "bottom up" approach. First, task-jr will
contain everything that forms the foundation of a Debian Jr. system
(either a dedicated children's box or an existing system on which the
children will be granted accounts).
> Linuxforkids has quite a bit of stuff listed that would be great for
> kids, of course. The Headmaster at my Daughters school is just looking
> for any educational-type software.
Sure, we extensively make use of Linuxforkids for coming up with new
things to package. It's also helpful as a guide for finding things
already in Debian that should be added to our list.
> Personally, I have found KLyX to be quite good and easy for Text editing and
> introducing the concept of TeX type editing rather than 'Word Processing'.
For what age range is KLyX suitable? Have you used it with children in
our first target age-range, 8 and under?
> I find Xsoldier to be quite entertaining and my daughter likes it too.
Could you please give a little summary, along the lines of the summaries
in our "packaged" list? I'm especially interested in what your daughter
thinks of it.
> XKoules is another good game, and we can't forget the obligatory
> minesweeper.
Again, summaries would be helpful.
> Doom and Quake are probably a bit too gruesome for under 8's.
Agreed. :)
> Some good music stuff wouldn't go astray. XMMS should be a must as well as
> Timidity++. If we could get a good MIDI writing package, this would help with
> music study. I've been working the KDE for Debian crowd to try Brahms, which
> seems to be good for what it needed, but there are dependency prob's at the
> moment. RoseGarden is closer to what would be useful, but is too bug-ridden to
> be any use at all.
Yes, I had the same trouble with RoseGarden. I remember many months ago
trying Brahms, but at that time KDE wasn't in Debian. It looked
promising, though. Again, please provide summaries for xmms and
timidity++, giving some guidance as to how these programs are suitable for
children, particularly what age children might use them, and any anecdotal
material regarding their use from your own experience.
> There are quite a few maths packages for various levels, of course this is
> second nature for the PC. English and other languages are more difficult to
> implement. I know there is an app listed in Linuxforkids that shows quite a bit
> of promise in this area. Sorry I don't have a link, but I don't have Internet
> access here at work. It is advertised as a second language tutorial with the
> ability to add words and languages fairly easily.
Perhaps you mean Qvocab? http://www.qvocab.seul.org/
Or maybe LingoTeach? I can't contact the site, but it is listed as
http://lingoteach.xnot.com
I am wondering how well LingoTeach runs with kaffe.
> Maybe some good reading software would be a good idea as well. I know
> emacs supports voice output, but this is rather complex for the under
> 8's. Festival would be a good start for a book that reads to you. We
> could start with public-domain literature.
Clearly some integration work would need to be done before I could
recommend festival. Also, parts of it are non-free, so I'd want to be
sure that the parts required to assemble a working "talking book" are
all in main.
> Most of this is based on what I'm looking to incorporate into the network system
> for my daughter's school. KDE provides quite an easy Desktop for the
> in-experienced, but is also memory hungry and not useful on lower spec PC's.
> Gnome is a little easier on memory, as long as it is not set-up to use
> enlightenment WM.
I have heard that enlightenment's memory requirements can be reduced
considerably by using minimal themes. Debian Jr. is initially focusing on
a desktop built around a simple window manager, and is avoiding KDE or
Gnome dependence. KDE or Gnome may be used to enhance a Debian Jr.
system, but it should be possible for Debian Jr. to be installed without
either.
> XFCE is a very light-weight Desktop, not W/M that is easy to
> use, extremely fast on low memory systems and easy to configure. The down-side
> is it takes a bit of configuring before it is very useful. But once set-up, it
> supports drag-N-drop and provides a very good and quick interface for a system.
> You might want to consider pre-configuring an XFCE desktop for Debian JR. The
> added bonus is it is completely different from the M$ idea of what a desktop
> should be. It is based on CDE, which is popular on many UNIX's, especially HP.
Ah. I always thought that was an xforms thing, but I see that the xfce
in unstable depends on gtk+. Sure, I'd like to give it a try. Is it
stable enough?
> These are just a few of my suggestions and observations. I'm willing to provide
> what help I can, but I'm not a programmer yet, and know very little about
> setting up deb's, but I'm willing to share my experiences and thoughts.
Thanks very much for your input.
Ben
--
nSLUG http://www.nslug.ns.ca synrg@sanctuary.nslug.ns.ca
Debian http://www.debian.org synrg@debian.org
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