My Four-Year-Old Daughter Rejected Windows 10

Eimi, my four year old daughter, has interacted with Linux-powered computers since she was born.  I still remember those nights in which I would pace up and down in my office, holding her and rocking her on my arms while the Linux desktop played music.

Then, Eimi grew and started enjoying her own room and, rather precociously, discovered how to use desktops and laptops. I will never forget her first encounter with PicarOS, the Linux distro for children!

Well, it turns out that the failing HD on her desktop finally went dead.  I took the machine to my favorite repair center to have the drive replaced.  In the meantime, I let Eimi use my desktop with OpenMandriva.

The technician called some days later, so I went to pick the machine up.

SURPRISE! 

He had installed Windows to it.  And, to make matters worse, Windows 8.1, I thought.

I did not protest because they did not charge me for the favor (very weird), so I took the computer home.  On the way, I was trying to decide if I should keep Windows 8.1 or not.  It turned out it was Windows 10 TP.

I went democratic about the issue of keeping this OS.  So I asked my wife and she said NO.  She gave up on Windows when she bought her first laptop, a Toshiba satellite pre-installed with Vista.  Now she owns a Dell that came pre-installed with Ubuntu and became a Mageia dual boot.

Then I asked Eimi if she wanted to use her computer with Windows.  Her answer was memorable and I have it recorded on video:  "Gross.  I don't want a computer with Windows Yuck.  Gross!"

That settled the fate of the Redmond OS, which was wiped out and replaced by PicarOS Diego 2014 to the delight of my daughter.  That Linux distro for children simply keeps getting better and better.

After that, I installed Mageia 4 to dual-boot.  Yes, she regularly uses those two distros despite some people still claim that Linux is too difficult for adult users.  Go figure!

One thing is sure: I will never forget Eimi's happily yelling "My computer is back!" when she saw she could dual boot PicarOS and Mageia.

More on PicarOS: Test passed!

One week ago, I described my encounter with PicarOS, a charming spin of GALPon MiniNO targeted to children.  I talked about how beautiful I had found it and how to walk the ropes of getting it installed as a dual boot with Mageia 2.

In the course of a the week, something interesting happened.  Several adults who saw the OS got grazy about it.  Megatotoro reports that even a school principal told him that she wanted PicarOS on all the lab computers of the school under her direction.

Default desktop in PicarOS 2012 (GALPon MiniNo)

Well, when I installed PicarOS to the desktop and laptop computers of my 2-year old daughter, I said that I had great expectations.  I meant that my daughter was not home when I performed the installs.  Therefore, I had not seen her reaction to the OS, and this is, understandably, paramount to speak about the success of PicarOS.  After all, the point of the distro is not getting adults excited (which it certainly did), but children.

My wife and daughter came back from their trip and the latter started narrating --with her growing Spanish vocabulary-- all of her adventures, while the former looked for her laptop to show me the pictures she had taken.  It was a nice illustrated conversation: my daughter Eimi told me about her visit to the park with the dinosaurs and her mother filled in the gaps when I did not understand the narration.

But then, it was time to turn off mommy's laptop and Eimi, upset, started crying.

It was the perfect time to see the PicarOS laptop in action.  As my daughter cried, I took out her machine and turned it on with discretion.  Eimi continued showing her frustration until a distictively childish music announced that PicarOS was about to launch.  Upon hearing the start music, Eimi turned to the screen and became quiet.  The OS greeted her with its icons and colors and my daughter ran toward the computer.  She sat in front of the screen in a state of awe, leaving her frustration tears behind.

We then began using the computer.  I simply cannot express the look in Eimi's face; it was as if, for the first time, she had encounter a computer that understood her.  She loved everything: the sounds, the colors, the icons, the software, the fact that the computer talks in the language she is trying to master...

Since then, Eimi regularly asks me to sit with her to explore the wonderful new world she has thanks to PicarOS.  We are having great fun discovering, singing, and playing together.  Today, for instance, we had a 1 hour 30 minute session of Poison Rouge in which, among other activities, she sang "Frere Jacques" and "Ten Green Bottles".  To  my surprise, she is picking up number in English quite fast, too.

This proves that PicarOS passed the test: it is a Linux distro that children can use to learn and enjoy.  My child, for one, loves it.

My Encounter with PicarOS, a Great Linux Distro for Children

My 2 year old daughter is very fond of computers.  Therefore,  I have been searching for options to make her desktop environment more appealing for her.  After all, anyone can use Linux these days.  And there are options for children, too.

I tried Qimo and Doudou.  Unfortunately, despite their beauty and functionality, they are not what I was looking for.  I wanted a OS that supports Spanish flawlessly.

Anyway, I saw a video about KidBox, a full-screen Urugayan browser that supposedly takes children to a safe environment online, where they can play and learn.  The idea sounded interesting, so I visited their website only to be slapped on the face with this discouraging message:

"LINUX. 

We are working on a version of Kidbox for your platform.

We will inform you when it becomes available!

* Currently available for Microsoft Windows"

Well, so much for KidBox...

Then, my brother Megatotoro called me in a frenzy, urging me to watch a video in YouTube about a Linux distro that he desperately wanted and could not download, so he wanted me to get it for him.  Without understandig his sense of urgency, I looked for the video.

That's when my jaw dropped.

It was PicarOS 2012, a spin of GALPon MiniNo especially tweaked to produce a child-friendly OS.  As I saw the video, I got more and more impressed by the interface and the software collection.  This is the video about PicarOS, uploaded by Introlinux:



However, I could not download the .ISO, either.  Apparently, the torrent and the magnet were not working.  But Introlinux was very kind and provided a direct link.  When the download finished, I burned the DVD and, literally drooling, tried PicarOS.

Everything I saw in the video was there but, more than that, absolutely everything was working out of the box!

The following day, I gave a copy of the DVD to my brother (read his review here) and my mother called me, asking me for another one.

"My daughter will appreciate this OS," I thought.  Therefore, I decided to install it to her desktop computer, which runs Mageia 2.

Installation of Picaros as a dual-boot with Mageia 2

Introlinux also gave me the installation instructions, so the process was not difficult.  What was painful was the discovery that Mageia could see PicarOS at boot.

So, it took me a day of trial-and-error frustration to configure the Mageia grub correctly, but I eventually achieved it.  Basically, one has to go to /boot/grub with Dolphin and, once there, open a Konsole.  Then you have to type
SU (and your superuser password when the system requires it)
export $(dbus-launch)
kwrite

When the GUI of Kwrite appears, you use its menu to open the file menu.lst and add the following:


title PicarOS (GALPon MiniNo)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-3-686-pae root=/dev/sda1 ro  splash quiet
initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-3-686-pae

Edited:
That's because I had PicarOS installed on the first partition (sda1).  You must edit the GRUB entry depending on the partition that you installed the system to.  For example, I installed it in a partition sda13 on my laptop.  The entry was like this:

title PicarOS (GALPon MiniNo)
root (hd0,12)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-3-686-pae root=/dev/sda13 ro  splash quiet
initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-3-686-pae

Then you save it and close everything.  When you reboot, you see that the new entry is in GRUB.

I booted PicarOS and, sure enough, got everything in place.
 

Default desktop in PicarOS 2012 (GALPon MiniNo)

I then added some things to make the browser look as the one my daughter is accostumed to seeing:

Firefox running the Scribblies Brite 6 theme

 After this, I installed PicarOS to the laptop that my daughter Eimi received from her grandmother for Christmas.  It is a Lenovo 3000 N100.  I chose the "basic-automatic" installation and the process was absolutely painless: PicarOS picked up the Wifi and configured everything without any input of mine.  It can even display the VGA video to a TV screen.

These days, in which companies see our children as marketing targets for consumerism, it is refreshing to see how Linux gives us options for our children to learn in a free environment.  And PicarOS is certainly a great choice for people in Spanish speaking countries.

I just want to see Eimi using her new computers...

SOME NOTES:
The name of the OS is a pun (The Spanish word "pícaros" means, in a positive sense, "rogues").
Despite being targeted to children, as Introlinux accurately asserts, "because of its packages, PicarOS can perfectly be the desktop of choice of any home user".  To illustrate, I was surprised to see the GIMP and LibreOffice in the software collection...and then I saw Blender.  I hope my daughter can teach me how to use that program one day ;-)
The desktop environment of Picaros is LXDE, which makes the OS lighter than other distros for children.
Finally, I posted this from PicarOS and, while I worked, I did not experience any crash or performance problem.  It can actually be the desktop of choice of a home user!