Comment by miningape
2 days ago
> Now my friend wants the same for their daughter who is 8 years old.
Be careful - even the most obvious things (to us) won't be to a small child. They'll need a bit of a guiding hand and/or someone to ask questions to. Linux isn't obvious and I wouldn't be too surprised if they run into hard edges at some point (sound driver stops working), without someone to actually go to for help the computer just becomes a brick.
- Someone who installed Linux on his beat-up laptop when he was 12 (*), and faced endless frustration with it. (My parents confiscated the laptop because I started hitting it lmao - later got a Windows desktop that "just worked")
* - I don't remember if it stopped being able to run windows (hardware too weak) or, if the windows partition had corrupted itself and I couldn't afford a new copy of windows.
Oh all good points. Sorry to hear of your personal frustrations. Yeah agree, I think learning computing is actual best done in a little community or even club. You know a few parents who care or after school gathering in the computer room or library space.
A friend had a cool idea of asking their friends to be their child’s mentor in certain areas; “I’d like my child to learn music taste from you, would u take them under ur wing for this?” Then the child could call that “aunty/uncle” for advice; same for the tech mentor.
Maybe also Linux has continued to get easier and more reliable over the years but yes very valid point; ongoing care and support make all the difference like many things.
Yeah that'd be a really good idea, and don't get me wrong - I still think Linux is a really nice idea, and will really give the kid an advantage. You just don't want to have the opposite effect by having the kid associate the computer with pain hahaha
> also Linux has continued to get easier and more reliable
100% especially if you get some very common hardware it's arguably more reliable than windows nowadays lol