Getting started - home user problems

English Open Build Service (OBS)
#1

I’m just getting started with the education tools to get my 3 year old grandson started on the computer. I’m running the standard 11.1 version of Suse/KDE but have added the education repository.

I’ve got GCompris and Child’s Play set up to run full screen and icons for them on the desktop. That is working pretty good, the grandson can start and run both with no problems.

Where we run into problems within these two is that we can’t figure out how some of them are supposed to work and some have bugs that prevent them from being used.

Where should I go for help?

If I can identify a bug where do I submit it?

Aside from these two is there anything else suitable for a 3 year old that I should be looking at?

Thanks for any suggestions.

#2

> my 3 year old … Where we run into problems within these two is
> that we can’t figure out how some of them are supposed to work

heh, it is for THREE year olds…it is FAR too advanced for YOU to
figure out.

> and some have bugs that prevent them from being used.

just a thought, is it possible that it might run ok in Gnome…

or in KDE, IF you update it past its as born KDE4.1, which has LOTS of
problems…there are how-tos in the how-to forum (surprise) on how to
upgrade to 4.2 and 4.3…

> Where should I go for help?

  • the community which made the two programs?
  • or maybe look at the documentation that was installed along with the
    programs…just as a wild idea try this in a browser:

file:///usr/share/doc/packages/GCompris
or
file:///usr/share/doc/packages/gcompris
or
file:///usr/share/doc/packages/ChildsPlay
or similar…or, just go to
file:///usr/share/doc/
and look around some…

> If I can identify a bug where do I submit it?

if it is an openSUSE problem you could go here:
http://en.opensuse.org/Submitting_Bug_Reports

if it is a problem with KDE4.1 but not other DEs you probably need to
find the KDE community…well…it might be a generic Linux problem…

> Aside from these two is there anything else suitable for a 3 year
> old that I should be looking at?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=linux+“computer programs”+for+children+“by age”

you may need to play with the search string some, like:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=linux+“computer programs”+“child education”
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=linux+“computer programs for children”+education

–
goldie
Give a hacker a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach google and you feed him for a lifetime.

#3

Sigh, That wasn’t a lot of help with my problems and getting started with these on OpenSuse but I did find Qimo and Edubuntu while on Google and both seem to have an active community that is interested in getting new users going and which is missing in the OpenSuse Education area.

I had hoped there was something available for OpenSuse but after spending an hour plus going in circles with dead/broken links in the Education section of the wiki, more trying to figure out which repository to use of the many that the Education wiki and home site leads me to and reading the package documentation both on my system and on the OpenSuse sites I guess I’ll have to try one of the other distributions. That is a darned shame since we have been using Suse since about version 9 for our main operating system.

Thanks for trying Goldie at least you cared enough to make a post.

#4

Hi

Sorry for the late reply. But maybe the answers are nonetheless useful.

Please have a look at Education/Communicating - openSUSE

The quickest way to get help is to use the IRC Channel #opensuse-edu on irc.freenode.net - but you also can post an email to opensuse-edu@opensuse.org if you want (please remember that you need to subscribe first).

Please use our bugzilla (you can use your Forum account data to log in): Welcome to education’s Bugzilla

Well, have a look at our list of educational appications for the desktop here:
Education/Applications/Desktop - openSUSE
as you can see, we’ve some apps recommended for everyone already.

Some from this list for age 0 and above:

  • GCompris
  • Childsplay
  • Tuxpaint
  • Blinken
  • PySyCache

With kind regards,
Lars