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Ask HN: How to prepare laptop for 7 years old kid?

6 points by dawidw ↗ HN
I want to prepare laptop for my 7 years old daughter.

- OS should be linux based - Only applications available: Anki, LibreOffice, some email client. No root privileges. Other applications like Firefox etc. not installed or blocked - Tux games available only Saturday 0800-1200

I was thinking about installing Ubuntu then creating separate user with limited access to each application as described [1]. And then some systemd script adding user to game group only during defined period of time - the same way as [1].

Is there any better way to do that?

Any other suggestions regarding the topic?

[1] https://askubuntu.com/questions/8149/how-can-i-restrict-program-access-to-other-users

2 comments

[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 6.2 ms ] thread
txutxu
Regarding games schedule, if the user is not root you can use cron or systemd timers, but this could be more user friendly for a child:

Create a zenity, xdialog, or any kind of graphical dialog explaining why it's not gaming time (even remembering the allowed gaming time) and put it in /usr/bin/games-denied

Rename the games to /usr/bin/GAME-allowed

Then with cron/timers just symlink /usr/bin/GAME to one or the other, so when the kid click in the game will get a dialog or the game, depending on the hour.

Also, I could recommend:

1) Try to automate the re-installation (disk images, preseed/kickstart for the OS, ansible for the setup...)

2) Provide some way to make backups (the kid will create content, you may want to save)

3) Download a lot of content (drawings to colorize, songs, funny images, whatever may interest this kid) and put it in the Documents/ dir so the kid can explore. Install extra fonts, icons, and whatever may improve document creation.

4) You may explore the system package manager for educational, science or artistic stimulation packages. Kids are surprised when they see the can play the piano in the laptop, or they can see the stars, or ... :)

apt-cache show ubuntu-edu-preschool

apt-cache show ubuntu-edu-primary

apt-cache show ubuntu-edu-secondary

5) Put a sound recorder icon, and a cam recorder icon, right in the desktop (if there is sound card or web cam in the laptop), you may get surprised by their creativity :)

LinuxBender
Big +1 for the automation of the re-installation. Maybe even have a pxe kickstart so the kid can choose to re-image their machine if they want. Add prompts that ask them twice if they are sure.

Automate OS patches. Set up game saves to an NFS server that takes snapshots with rsnapshot or lvm snapshots.