First Linux for kids

I found out my brother (9 y/o) is getting a laptop for Christmas (Ryzen 5 5500U with Radeon - 16GB RAM). That means I will inevitably be asked to do setup sometime this week. I know the main thing he wants to do is make stop-motion animation videos, but he's not getting a dedicated GPU so Windows is not an option for video editing (or much else these days). What's the best distro for children to learn from? I looked into distros specifically built for children (Qimo, KidX, DouDou), but they are mostly outdated and not regularly maintained. Even the latest Ubermix is based on Ubuntu 22. Edubuntu and Zorin Education look good, but the ISOs are really big (6.4 and 8.1 GB respectively), so I wonder how well they would run Blender, Openshot or Kdenlive on top of all that bloat. I thought about just installing a grown-up distro, but ease of use is a key issue. You can't just tell a child to RTFM. (I also can't instruct a family member to maintain it while I'm away, because they are normal people who treat me like a wizard for opening the terminal). Does anyone have experience with doing a setup for kids? How did it go, and what would you recommend?

>>90378 just install popos/mint/ubuntu, and throw tuxpaint/ whatever else on top. What do these children- focused distros even offer? I guess what you could do is ask him to call you if he gets stuck, or set up some remote desktop thing

You should definitely get him on Arch so he learns how to tardwrangle his puter at a young age and become a great hackerman in the future. >stop motion video Very doable with imagemagick and ffmpeg.

>>90378 >stop-motion animation At his age I had a DSi with Flipnote. That was pretty awesome, so of course Nintendo killed it. These days I use Krita for stop-motion stuff, but it might be too heavy for a kid. >what distro? Debian GNOME is probably the easiest for him. As long as he stays out of the terminal, he can't brick it in any way I can think of. You can set a separate root password during installation to be absolutely sure, or maybe look at the Parental Controls app that comes preinstalled, idk. You'll want to setup the usual with UFW, Flatpaks, add minimize and maximize buttons in "Tweaks", setup Firefox with Port Authority, ClearURLs, maybe Libredirect or everything you need to make Youtube bearable, and uBlock with all default lists active and whatever you want from here: https://github.com/laylavish/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist https://github.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists https://oisd.nl/setup/ublockorigin https://github.com/yokoffing/filterlists https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/ Obviously, you should block cross-site cookies and delete them all when the browser shuts down. You can also add a GNOME extension to make it so the system changes from light to dark theme on a schedule. Combined with "Night Light" under Display settings, this will help his circadian rhythm. https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/2236/night-theme-switcher/ There's a similar Firefox extension "Dark Reader", but it's a performance hog, so I'm not sure if you should add that.

My instinct says Ubuntu LTS or ElementaryOS or PopOS but I really dont know. Otherwise if he isnt using any heavy programs I would say go for something more Android based because most kids these days are familiar with it anyway and no command line needed but im not really aware of a desktop deGoogled Android at the moment.

>>90384 Yeah I kinda lold at OP stating that win11 isn't gonna work with igpu. I have a 5500U 8GB trashtop and it works pretty good with win11.

>>90379 Hadn't thought about PopOS. Is it any better than Ubuntu for graphics drivers? I know it's only onboard Radeon, but I want him to get all the hardware acceleration possible for editing. >>90380 >give a 9 year old Arch That is cruel and wrong on too many levels to list. >>90381 All good ideas, thanks. I never used Port Authority before, does it ever interfere with normal use? >>90383 Android would be good if there were a better FOSS package manager for it. Probably a good idea for a teenager, but I don't want to force a 9 year old to use Droidify, or worse make him configure Obtainium. >>90384 There are 7 e's in your post. Also Merry Christmas everyone. >>90386 Have you even tried anything graphics-heavy on Windows 11? It lags just opening Outlook unless you have a dedicated GPU.

>>90387 >Have you even tried anything graphics-heavy on Windows 11? It lags just opening Outlook unless you have a dedicated GPU. Doesn't lag on my machine. That is didn't lag two month ago, that was the last time I booted it lol

>>90384 It's as good an excuse as any to think about how you'd keep your kid off the plantation. >>90387 >does Port Authority interfere with normal use? No, doesn't trigger Cloudflare either. You should think A LOT more about how he's going to access Youtube. Invidious and FreeTube are pretty unreliable lately, so you want SponsorBlock, Return YouTube Dislike, and Unhook. Insta and TikTok should be Libredirected at least, or ideally blocked on all devices. Including your parents'.

>mint Would ubuntu be better in this case? Mints only preferred for new users that are experienced in windows.

>>90392 Ubuntu is one of the few distros that you don't need to touch the terminal ever. People hate GNOME because it's so different than Windows and I agree with that. It gives me strong macOS vibes but without the usual Apple shenigans. Personally I prefer "pure" distributions like debian and fedora and I think everyone should know a little bit of bash for automating linux tasks and a little bit of javascript for writing web userscripts. It is insanely productive in the long run but not everyone has the appetite for that. For those people Ubuntu is a good choice.

>>90387 > Hadn't thought about PopOS. Is it any better than Ubuntu for graphics drivers? I know it's only onboard Radeon, but I want him to get all the hardware acceleration possible for editing. I am not sure the best way to compare. For graphics focus you could also consider Nobara since it is gaming distro so they try to make it more graphics optimized.

>>90378 i would reccomend Endless OS since it is the most basic user interface and it comes pre installed with some learning programs. https://www.endlessglobal.com/foundation/access/operating-system

>>90389 >Insta and TikTok should be Libredirected at least how? none of the frontends work

>>90399 redirect them to localhost to have a better view and greater peace of mind

Why isn't anyone suggesting something which uses KDE?

>>90399 Exactly. With some luck, by the time he figures out how to circumvent it, he'll be old enough to avoid the worst of the brain damage.

>>90378 You should just install Gentoo

I doubt that any children-focused GNU/Linux distros are well-maintained, just install LMDE and perhaps throw in some safety barriers like alias'ing dangerous troll commands like the infamous rm / and the one that I don't have at hand which crashes your computer by infinitely spawning programs. If he's used to Windows then try to make it more Windows alike and teach him the differences between your distro of choice and Windows, getting used to a new environment can have a learning curve. >Edubuntu and Zorin Education look good, but the ISOs are really big (6.4 and 8.1 GB respectively), so I wonder how well they would run Blender, Openshot or Kdenlive on top of all that bloat. I didn't check but like most polished GNU/Linux distros it's probably just some extra packages and a few other stuff like Plymouth that couldn't hog a lot of resources.

>>90403 It's the use case. Unless a particular distro's implementation is bad, KDE has better features and presentation for anyone coming from Windows, but we're talking about an actual child who (presumably) only used tablets and phones before, and OP can't always be there to help him. >>90429 see >>90404 Kids shouldn't be on Tiktok, and age verification would just be the end of the internet, so we need to take responsibility for our kids.

>>90389 Good to know. I'll probably just block TikTok altogether as it's pure Chinese datamining. >>90395 >Nobara Is it really better than Ubuntu with proprietary graphics drivers enabled? I'm just talking for onboard Radeon here, not the latest NVidea. >>90404 This is my general strategy - block the brainrot, but also give him full admin privileges. He'll have to learn to use the terminal to disable the protections I've put in place, by which time he will be responsible.

linux mint just werks, my kids use it fine

It would be child abuse to have him use a server OS (that doesn't even repair itself automatically with fsck from the inevitable improper shut down) instead of Windows 10 LTSC with Premiere Pro CC 2017, DaVinci Resolve 18.6, After Effects CC 2014, Animate CC 2018, Adobe Audition CC 2017 and FL Studio 2024 w/ some Roland VSTs, from rutracker et al.

>>90475 >I'll probably just block TikTok altogether as it's pure Chinese datamining. TikTok is operated by Oracle and will be officially sold to them soon, and there are a ton of stop-motion videos there you won't find elsewhere. Also it's a boy. Boys will be boys, there's no reason to micromanage what he does (beyond last resort) or he will resent you for not giving him some trust and privacy. A girl is more vulnerable because she'll send nudes and such to strangers. Instead you should teach him about groomers from Discord, Roblox and other places, especially certain MtF transgenders who prey on lonely boys, and have him be aware of the psychological manipulation, how cults work, why people fall into cults, and so on. Empower him with knowledge instead of being a micromanaging Karen. It's a bit of a different situation since you're an older brother instead of a parent, not sure how much influence you have over him, since a parent should also be ensuring their child is being educated properly (school is not enough and focuses on the wrong things in life often).

>>90378 >I also can't instruct a family member to maintain it while I'm away why don't you set up SSH on his machine so you can maintain it properly, as long as the machine is online? for distro I'd just look for stable and LTS. every flavor that brings something "user-friendly" to the table can be added by you + you'll know what's installed and how to maintain it. Debian and Debian based systems work the best for me, as in, didn't have something break that wasn't easily fixed in nearly a decade. (maintaining a server and 3 PCs) and why would you guys recommend gnome? that's diabolical, give the boy a proper DE please

>>90475 > Good to know. I'll probably just block TikTok altogether as it's pure Chinese datamining. Why is it bad if it is Chinese? Chinese businesses and government cant do anything to you unless you are Chinese nationals or someone of high profile unlike what reach one can face from US companies but that also depends where you live and your threat model.

>>90478 I like it too, but I really need to squeeze every bit of graphics performance I can out of this thing. >>90480 I am not giving him all that bloat, or allowing Microsoft to spy on him. >>90482 >Boys will be boys That's why I'm doing it. When you learn to bypass restrictions, you build skill and autonomy. He will have root access, so he can do anything he wants when he learns how. >>90483 >SSH Best idea yet, thanks. >>90489 Chinese cyberwarfare is HNDL. I don't want to give them a single vector.

>>90528 >I am not giving him all that bloat, or allowing Microsoft to spy on him. based. I am kinda looking forward to him getting his PC now. keep us updated Onii Chan Lainon

>>90533 UPDATE: Tried Nobara and the graphics are great, but it doesn't handle dependencies very well (e.g. I could not install qstopmotion without first manually installing Qwt libraries). Not great for a machine that needs to auto-update without breaking while I'm away. So I'm going back to my old friend Ubuntu. It looked after me when I was a n00b, so I'm sure it won't hurt my brother. Trying to install most things with snaps so that snapd will take care of it, but also configured unattended-upgrades so the APT packages will be ok even if he forgets to update. Installed flathub to cover the gaps (e.g. there is no Scratch 3 snap or .deb for some reason). I partitioned the drive manually so the swap exactly matches the RAM (no problems with hibernate), and purged the Windows bootloader from NVRAM, so the last trace of Microsoft is gone. Made the icons and text bigger so it's easy to use. Put ClearMind, Port Authority, Return YouTube Dislike, SponsorBlock and uBlock Origin on Firefox. The one concession I have to make is a Google account, because he wants to upload his stopmotion animations on YouTube. So I made a child account and a parent account with family link, then switched off storing search history and search personalization. Now I'm just installing more packages. My brother is really good at math, but terrible at reading for his age, so I'm looking mainly for games that help with reading practice. If you know a good snap, flatpak or .deb, please suggest it. Happy New Year, Lainons. :)

>>90528 Some countries have laws against companies collecting data on minors under a certain age which technically allows for you to contact the companies and have them delete existing data or even request a way to prevent further data collection. Whether they actually follow through is another question.

>>90561 I've heard many people have learned to read from the pokemon games, so maybe something along those lines. Good luck to you and your little bro and happy new year to you too!

>>90561 >then switched off storing search history wouldn't that break his YouTube Frontpage? >I'm looking mainly for games that help with reading practice. I don't know, what's he into? not sure if a "learning game" really catches his interest to be honest.. you could go for a comic-book or manga reader and put some cool stuff on that he might wanna read I guess.. maybe Text-Adventure games? Visual Novels? >If you know a good snap, flatpak or .deb, please suggest it. KISS. I wouldn't overload the system from the get-go. Install what he needs, when you have SSH access to his system, you can remotely install the stuff he needs later on. having his browsing and stop-motion thing covered I'd maybe install GIMP for Picture editing and Kdenlive or shotcut for video editing. shotcut is more barebones, Kdenlive is more involved but you can get pretty professional with it for what it is.

>>90561 One of the things I did as well is allow my laptop to SSH into my daughter's PC. She doesn't do much but play Sims and Minecraft, but it's good to be able to fix things from a distance when she is at her mom's.

>>90561 >>90566 >I've heard many people have learned to read from the pokemon games, so maybe something along those lines. I second this, and I think that if you teach him to use a SNES or GBA emulator and preload it with games of your choice, he might really appreciate it later on... assuming he is the type to play video games. A lot of my early reading ability came from playing Pokemon clones online and being annoying in YouTube comments sections, but obviously you won't want a kid talking to strangers as irresponsibly as that. If you teach a child to read via reading games he will not like it. This is because you are giving him a game specifically to tell him he is bad at reading, and when it rewards him solely based on reading or writing skill and punishes him accordingly, he will feel frustrated and give up. I noticed this in my (admittedly autistic) younger brothers before we got their skills up by giving them things they were genuinely interested in; then they learned naturally.

>>90566 >>90572 >pokemon games >Pokemon clones >GBA emulator Good idea, I'll try installing an emulator. Does anyone know good Pokemon clones that will run natively on Linux? >>90567 >wouldn't that break his YouTube Frontpage? IDK, would it? If it does, I'll have to change the settings. Just trying to keep as much info private as possible. >comic-book or manga reader I like that idea. In fact, looking back, I got good at reading mainly from comics. If anyone knows a good source for public domain manga/comics, please let me know. >Kdenlive or shotcut Kdenlive is too complicated. I never used Shotcut before - is it easier than Openshot? >>90569 >SSH Already covered ITT, but thanks for the reminder. I will definitely do that.

>>90581 >good Pokemon clones that will run natively on Linux? not a clone in particular but PokeMMO has potential to sink a bunch of time in and it runs natively. >Just trying to keep as much info private as possible. good, just test if it breaks stuff, I think it will. >good source for public domain manga/comics I mean, the Internet Archive is a great source for such things but I'd just pirate the good stuff and don't make compromises because it has to be public domain >is it easier than Openshot? I don't know that. if the system can run kdenlive I'd honestly go with that. learning the basics isn't that hard. I use shotcut on really low-end machines, it's damn lightweight and does the trick for basic editing. >Already covered ITT I know. I wasn't recommending SSH jet again, I was recommending not overloading the system from the start because you can install whatever he needs at any given time over SSH. hence KISS

I am going to go against what others have said here. Stop trying to create a power user of a novice by introducing a simplified GUI to complicated systems. These 'kid focused' distros are adult distros with kid friendly cruft attached. Instead install something basic and lock it down. No joke, for this exact situation I use crunchbang++ or bunsen labs every time and then I remove write permission to the config files. I don't want a kid installing or updating something they don't understand whilst i'm not there to supervise. Although local package managers like Flatpak are half broken dogshit and a permissions management nightmare for beginners, it has simple website installs with pictures and clicky things so they can install stuff without you there. Also: TuxType TuxPaint TuxMath

>>90589 UPDATE: I've installed Krita, GIMP, qStopMotion, Audacity, OpenShot, OBS, Scratch and MComix. Also Steam and Discord, but they will be on a parent-controlled account of course. Installed some of the Free to Play games from Steam (Warplanes: WW1 Sky Aces, Crusader Kings 2, Planet S, SYNTHETIK: Arena, and War Selection). LibreOffice for homework, but also Vim and Emacs in case he ever gets into coding and wants something more powerful. Tested his external hardware. As always with Linux, the headset is the problem (works, but only when manually selected as input and output in Sound Settings). Now I'm just looking for good video tutorials to download so he can watch them in his own time. >>90633 >TuxType >TuxPaint >TuxMath I've installed all the Tux games that are available as Snaps and put them in one big folder in the applications menu. They're so light, you'd might as well do it for all installs.

>>90643 okay I gotta ask now, does he actually use the PC by now or are you just tinkering with it? does he show interest in any of the stuff besides the things you mentioned in you OP post? >LibreOffice for homework fair >but also Vim and Emacs in case he ever gets into coding do you use one of them? if so, why not give him the one you can advice him with? if not, he'll be fine with nano for now (editing stuff in shell that is, for whatever reason he would need this) >Tested his external hardware. As always with Linux, the headset is the problem (works, but only when manually selected as input and output in Sound Settings). ALSA and Pulse aren't that bad anymore, should be fixable. >I've installed all the Tux games that are available as Snaps Okay what are we even doing here at this point? lmao KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID Anyways, keep us updated, looking forward to him finally getting his over-the-top hobbyist linux

>>90643 I noticed nobody mentioned Heroic yet, Heroic is pretty decent for collecting a handful of free games from Epic. I've gotten about 200 games over the past few years, just getting them for free. Bit late now, especially around Christmas Epic is pretty generous. Game quality varies, obviously, a few AAA games, mostly smaller games though.

>>90533 UPDATE: I visited the family home and gave my brother his laptop. Connected it to the house wifi and added a USB splitter so he won't run out of ports. Left video tutorials on there for all of the editing software, and 3GB of comics for reading practice. For some reason he was immediately drawn to GIMP and Scratch. Maybe he's a future animator. >>90659 >Heroic I can see the appeal, but he's still learning to use Steam. I'll let him get used to it before adding another games launcher.

>>90736 >the main thing he wants to do is make stop-motion animation videos >Maybe he's a future animator No soykaf!

Awh I am happy to see more kids nowadays have experience with some linux fun. Thats really interesting that he is interested in stop-motion stuff. When I was young my father gave me his old Toshiba laptop to use. The screen was not working well, so we had to plug it into a small tv I had in my room. It was a bit weird to see such a pink room I had when I was little and then have a corner of complete black keyboard, black little wooden desk, and a bunch of wires. (Do keep your brothers space clean, lol). I started with puppy linux, its light and worked incredibly well with that toshiba. I don't know the state of puppy linux these days, I started with Tahrpup. I was around 12-13 years old at the time. Once I got older I started exploring other distros, but that edition of puppylinux stuck with me because it ran well with the toshiba, but I used other stuff once I built my own PC later on. Times have changed now and the new laptop has good conditions for your brother, have you considered Debian? I saw they have some interesting programs and packages for stop motion stuff from someone I knew, but dont quote me. I dont know if its beginner friendly, but most distros get time to get used to anyways. The last one I can think of is CachyOS, I think its good for vidyas too if your brother is interested (something I would've wanted to know when I was younger though not part of OP's question). Anyways, I hope you figure it out!

>>90533 >>90736 UPDATE: Tried to test the SSH I set up at the suggestion of >>90483. Turns out their ISP uses CGNAT and you have to pay extra for a static IP, so I cannot connect through the WAN like normal. I can ping the router IP, but cannot SSH through it. Will have to find an alternative solution. Saw my brother today and showed him how to use Stop Motion Studio on his phone (Android 11). He already made a stand out of Lego and a figurine to animate. Grasped the concept of onion skinning very quickly and made a short 33 frame video to test it. I told him if he makes a few more I will show him how to upload them for editing next time I see him. >>90798 I've already given him Ubuntu. Debian is objectively good, but I'd rather start him on the easiest possible distro that you can learn to maintain just by reading the forums. Plus it's Debian-based, so a lot of skills will transfer if he wants to use Debian later. >Do keep your brothers space clean, lol I offered to help tidy, but he's getting a new table for his room soon so everything will get moved to that.

>>90859 >Will have to find an alternative solution. Look into cloudflare tunneling, you can use ssh without port forwardin.. With some extra steps. >I'd rather start him on the easiest possible distro. How in the fuarrrk is it the easiest? >learn to maintain just by reading the forums The only distro that's community is less helpful that comes to my mind is soykaf like raspian. Don't know about the documentation overall but if he can read forums, he can use any given distro. He will just encounter more people with half knowledge on Ubuntu. >it's Debian-based, so a lot of skills will transfer if he wants to use Debian later. What exactly are Debian skills? SystemD? It's package manager? Having a stable or LTS release? Glad to hear he's finally doing his stop-motion thing. Does he use the PC already, if so, for what?

You underestimate how fast kids can learn, just throw him in a beginner distro like Linux Mint and he will learn how to do the things he likes, just preinstall a bundle of games and teach him how to open them and that's it. A nice firewall is a must too, you can find sick soykaf very fast on the current Internet.

>>90533 >>90859 UPDATE: Brother is learning Stop Motion Studio on his own by playing with Lego bricks. Showed him how to move files from phone to laptop and he understood. Got a call the next day that he was having trouble so went back to show him, but he ended up fixing the problem on his own (he just forgot to tell his phone to do MTP). With an adult I'd be annoyed that the client didn't listen and take notes the first time, but given that he's 9 years old I'm just impressed that he found the solution himself. Next time I see him I will introduce editing software so he can format videos for YouTube (his main goal). The only barrier I'm coming up against is that he's very resistant to watching tutorials. If I show him things in person he will listen, but if I leave a video on his laptop he just won't watch it. Rest of family are very complacent about it too, so there's no point talking to them as they won't encourage him to watch it. I want to make sure he has DevOps and AI-powered editing skills, as that's all that will get you a real job in the automated future. >>90894 >How in the fuarrrk is it the easiest? Easiest for a 9 year old: mostly works with no input and every problem you encounter can be fixed from forum posts. >He will just encounter more people with half knowledge on Ubuntu. You only need quarter-knowledge to fix Ubuntu, and the forum posters have half-knowledge. Ideal. >What exactly are Debian skills? Knowing how to install, administer and configure a Debian-based operating system using Bash and Vim alone such that it can be used as a server or a personal desktop. I'm working on it. Give me a few years and I'll get him there. >>90896 >just throw him in a beginner distro like Linux Mint and he will learn how to do the things he likes That's pretty much what I've done by giving him Ubuntu. The only barrier right now is he can't see how the stuff I'm teaching him will help him format videos for YouTube. He gets the concepts, but doesn't see how it translates into real world action. I'm hoping once he gets past that barrier, he will understand.

>>90378 Ubuntu MATE with the Munity layout... come home, white man.

>>91201 Impressive stuff. Keep it up!

>>90533 >>91201 UPDATE: Saw my brother again and showed him how to use OpenShot. He now cuts out mistakes, saves to .osp files and exports to MP4 in the correct resolution. Asked him if he wants to do thumbnails or sound effects next and he opted for sound, so I'll be showing him how to prepare sound tracks next. >>91451 Thanks, I'll keep you posted. Now that he knows how to make a simple stop motion his interest level has risen. Maybe in a few years I can show him how to install Gentoo.

>>90533 >>91536 UPDATE: Showed him how to download free sound effects from Pixabay and add them to a video. He's beginning to get comfortable with Openshot, so I'll probably try teaching Audacity next.

>>92254 You are a good brother. This thread is straight up adorable. I personally would've went with Fedora for more recent packages or Nobara for better optimizations, but if Ubuntu is working well then that's good :)

>>92324 You have good taste. I use Fedora on my main machine too, but I'm a big boy who can check dependencies and read logs. I want my brother to have super stable updates that just work, so APT is the PM of choice. >>90533 >>92254 UPDATE: I set up a Youtube channel and other family members are doing the uploads. He knows how to prepare videos for it, but gets a bit lazy when it comes to editing. So when we met on Wednesday this week I tried an experiment where he records assets and I edit, then I record assets and he edits. I think he learned a lot more from doing it this way, so my next task will be to get him using Google Drive so we can share assets and do this on a regular basis. Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Kamran.Nugget

>>93789 ruined the bit here; should've kept consistent formatting