4 ms·

Reminds me a bit of the One Laptop Per Child project, which according to some people is a little bit defunct. They produced a distro called Sugar (https://www.s

Reminds me a bit of the One Laptop Per Child project, which according to some people is a little bit defunct. They produced a distro called Sugar (https://www.sugarlabs.org https://www.sugarlabs.org) that might be worth looking into. Now tablets have largely overcome laptops as an inexpensive computing device for children. EDIT: not defunct as people let me know. thanks for pointing this out.

yunruse 10y ago
I just donated $100 to OLPC yesterday, so I might be swayed here, but I think laptops still fit the cheap-to-produce educational niche – the newer models have a tablet mode, but a flat tablet couldn't easily hold the wifi antennas needed for community-based "intra"net.
willvarfar 10y ago
Yeah the early OLPC thing seems to have got derailed with the whole Windows and CEO nonsense and lost the NH-style techies rooting for it :(
oever 10y ago
> which according to some people is a little bit defunct The blog is active. http://blog.laptop.org/ http://blog.laptop.org/ > Now tablets have largely overcome laptops as an inexpensive computing device for children. Children get exposed to horrible devices a lot. The One Laptop Per Child project gives children a device that is sturdy, energy efficient, easy to repair, and comes with full editable source code and no ties to brainwashing data thieves like Google and Facebook.
- partycoder 10y ago
  Agreed. And tablets are very opaque too, UIs hide all the internals and don't leave much to learn... as opposed to early home computers like the ZX Spectrum, which exposed people to programming right away.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    True, but in this regard iPads are actually quite good when compared with the alternatives. Granted, kids will need their parents to install them the apps, but there are quite a few to play around with programming. For example Pythonista. And Apple now even is investing into it with the Playgrounds, of course not out of kindness, but also to get children hooked on Swift. Then I would put Windows tablets on second, because most of them are hybrid computers, so there are some options there. On Android parents are stuck with AIDE or apps that feel like people bundling text input fields with an eval button over the weekend. So nothing really appropriate here and 100% in sync with your remark.
eric_bullington 10y ago
My kids used Sugar as their primary OS until they were about 4/6 respectively. It was great, and they really got a lot of enjoyment out of the games. When they reached elementary age, I then moved them to Ubuntu, which they happily use now to play online games, do their homework, etc.
pjmlp 10y ago
Not only laptops, netbooks as well. I recently came to realize that on that price range you can find hybrid laptops (tablets with detachable keyboard) and that my Eee PC 1215B was probably one of the last models to be produced for that price range. Which puts GNU/Linux outside this price range, unless parents get PIs and similar computers.

yunruse 10y ago

I just donated $100 to OLPC yesterday, so I might be swayed here, but I think laptops still fit the cheap-to-produce educational niche – the newer models have a tablet mode, but a flat tablet couldn't easily hold the wifi antennas needed for community-based "intra"net.

willvarfar 10y ago

Yeah the early OLPC thing seems to have got derailed with the whole Windows and CEO nonsense and lost the NH-style techies rooting for it :(

oever 10y ago

> which according to some people is a little bit defunct The blog is active. http://blog.laptop.org/ http://blog.laptop.org/ > Now tablets have largely overcome laptops as an inexpensive computing device for children. Children get exposed to horrible devices a lot. The One Laptop Per Child project gives children a device that is sturdy, energy efficient, easy to repair, and comes with full editable source code and no ties to brainwashing data thieves like Google and Facebook.

partycoder 10y ago
Agreed. And tablets are very opaque too, UIs hide all the internals and don't leave much to learn... as opposed to early home computers like the ZX Spectrum, which exposed people to programming right away.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  True, but in this regard iPads are actually quite good when compared with the alternatives. Granted, kids will need their parents to install them the apps, but there are quite a few to play around with programming. For example Pythonista. And Apple now even is investing into it with the Playgrounds, of course not out of kindness, but also to get children hooked on Swift. Then I would put Windows tablets on second, because most of them are hybrid computers, so there are some options there. On Android parents are stuck with AIDE or apps that feel like people bundling text input fields with an eval button over the weekend. So nothing really appropriate here and 100% in sync with your remark.

eric_bullington 10y ago

My kids used Sugar as their primary OS until they were about 4/6 respectively. It was great, and they really got a lot of enjoyment out of the games. When they reached elementary age, I then moved them to Ubuntu, which they happily use now to play online games, do their homework, etc.

pjmlp 10y ago

Not only laptops, netbooks as well. I recently came to realize that on that price range you can find hybrid laptops (tablets with detachable keyboard) and that my Eee PC 1215B was probably one of the last models to be produced for that price range. Which puts GNU/Linux outside this price range, unless parents get PIs and similar computers.