A PC for my grandchildren

[Joseph Bishay]

Good morning,

I have found using squidguard with edubuntu has worked perfectly for
Internet parental access control.  There are several blacklists that
integrate with Squidguard and it's worked flawlessly for us for over a
decade.

Thanks
Joseph

On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 6:14 PM, Oscar Rojas <abuetico at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hello Edubuntu comunity!
>
> I am new to this forum. Hope to be in the right place to comment my project.
> If not please tell me where should I go...
>
> My son has an old Compaq desktop (Pentium 4, 512MB RAM, 40GB HD) that he
> wants to dedicate as a PC for my four grandchildren. He have asked me to
> help him in this project (I am retired and have plenty of time).
> These are the main features we are looking for:
>
> 1) The system must be robust and stable, I mean "kids proof". We have the
> experience of give them a Windows based PC and have to reinstall it again.
> We don't know exactly what did they do, but the fact is that some system
> critical files were damaged. For this reason my son says that he prefers a
> Linux based system. It is a common belief that Linux is less vulnerable than
> Windows, either regarding malicious attack as well as user catastrophic
> faults.
> 2) I am not a Linux guy, so the installation and maintenance tasks must be
> "novice proof". A support channel will be a plus.
> 3) Since there will be several kids sharing the PC, there must be an easy
> "sign in" procedure to identify each user. Each kids must have his/her own
> repository to save his/her creations avoiding the others to destroy them.
> Besides, there should be a way to share contents between them (a sort of
> common repository or a send/receive method).
> 4) The system must be intuitive to use by a young kid (2 to 8 years old and
> growing ...) Ideal if the desktop could be customized for each kid.
> 5) There should be a good set of pre-packed applications suited for kids and
> an easy way to install new applications. We are looking for educational
> games/activities and homework tools.
> 6) Internet access must be allowed but controlled by some sort of filters
> managed by parents. Better if there is a way to subscribe to a community
> maintained black list.
> 7) Access to frequently visited sites on the Internet (like school site, on
> line educational tools) should be facilitated by means of icons or easy
> access controls created by parents.
> 8) There should be a easy web-searching interface.
> 9) E-mail, chats and similar social media must be allowed but parental
> controlled.
> 10) We are in Costa Rica, a Spanish speaking country, but the children
> attend a bilingual school where most classes are taught in English. So, we
> plan to install the software in English, but it could be nice to have an
> easy language switch and some language tools (dictionary, translator,
> spelling).
>
> I have read some reviews about Linux for Kids. It sounds to me that Edubuntu
> fits most (if not all) of our requirements... however some reviews states
> that Edubuntu is not best suited for home user because it is aimed for
> schools... (may be they are outdated reviews)..
>
> I will appreciate if somebody can provide me some URL's to documents
> detailing the features and characteristics of Edubuntu, so I can check how
> well Edubuntu meets our
> wishes. Of course, direct comments/answers addressing some of
> our requirements are welcome.
>
> Thanks in advance for your attention.
>
> Hope to be soon another Edubuntu fan!
>
> Oscar Rojas
> Costa Rica
>
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