Hello. I wonder if you can help me.
I am a father of three boys. My middle child, John, became very ill after prolonged attacks by bullies and has subsequently been diagnosed by psychologists at the hospitat as having post-traumatic stress disorder after one particularly nasty bullying episode.
-%%- I know that this doesn't sound very much to do with LINUX but I will get there in the end!!
John, who is 9, is now being home educated by me and my wife and is making a steady recovery. John has a lively and inquiring mind and a strong determination when working on projects such as the Solar-Powered Fan Cooling System taped to his bedroom window, or the Portable Shoebox HiFi, each made out of electronic parts cannibalised from remote control cars, old radios and from bits and pieces that we've bought for him. Then there's the interest in insects ....
About a year ago John got given an old laptop with Windows 98 (upgraded from '95) on it. Gradually it started to go wrong (DLL files). We haven't got a lot of money, are not on the internet and, as it was an old machine, I didn't consider that it was worth the hassle or expense to search around for a copy of ' 98.
--%% I will be discussing LINUX shortly, I promise !!
The best that I could do, with my limited understanding of computers, was to remove windows from the Boot Up and allow John to play around with DOS. John has enjoyed very much learning and using the DOS commands, also downloading free DOS games from the internet at the library, putting them on floppies, and unzipping them on his machine.
Unfortunately we've come to a bit of a standstill: (1) the laptop is becoming more and more temperamental and (2) we've never managed to get a USB driver to work for DOS and so John is limited to only downloading 1.44 Mb files.
I had read about Ubuntu and, when I spoke to Alex at Jamie's Computer Club about purchasing a machine and heard that they had systems with Ubuntu on them, I was very excited.
What I like about such a system is:
a) I think it would be stimulating for John to work on a different Operating System
b) I plan to spend ~£100 and I can get a lot more bangs for my buck if I don't have to spend half the budget on Microsoft
c) From what I can gather, there are a multitude of programs written for Linux which John and I could download from the library internet on to a USB memory stick (we plan to get the internet some time in the future, budget allowing).
d) I understand that John would be able to use his digital camera via USB on Ubuntu and put his photos on to a DVD/CD
e) I've been told that Ubuntu has a C compiler built in to it. I think that I would enjoy teaching, and John would enjoy learning, C.
f) I am interested in the whole OpenSource network idea and think that it would be of interest to John. From what I gather, Opensource programmes can be customised and improved and then offered back to the internet. I understand that this would be too difficult a process that requires a lot of computing skills for John at the moment, but I also know that he is a very determined little man that might well be inspired by such possiblities.
What does anyone think about my plan? Am I barking up the wrong tree? Are there any major drawbacks that I am unaware of?
If we did decide to get such a set up then would John be able to accompany me to some of the HantsLUG meetings (judging from your emails, these would prob. be too technical for the near future), or would that be considered inappropriate bearing in mind his age ( I quite understand an adults only rule) ?
If anybody can give me some advice that would be very much appreciated.
Ben Lakeland.
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