On 06/05/10 16:00, Graeme wrote:

The problem. A nine year old son who is *desperate* to download and play
with Ubantu, for reasons unknown. Posts here suggest that Ubantu may not
be the best choice for someone who is keen to learn, but a complete
novice (with a Father who knows a little about DOS and Windows but
nothing of Linux).

Which flavour would you recommend?

We have a spare PC that he can use, without the risk of doing anything
terminal to the main PC. He talks about Linux and dual booting, but
doesn't really know much about the subject. I have a two port KVM switch
box, the idea being that he can run two PCs at once, using Linux on one,
then switching to the other standard Windows PC, to find help, etc.

Words of wisdom will be appreciated :-)

Although it looks confusing to an outsider you shouldn't worry too much
about which version. Ubuntu is the latest mainstream distro to release a
new version and that's as good as any other criterion for choosing. It
helps that it's also a relatively newbie-friendly system. You should
encourage him to try several others in due course.

Running Linux in a separate machine is preferable to dual-booting
because that's a bit complicated to fix if it goes pear-shaped.

The other criterion that I might consider using is the availability of a
local expert who would be available to help out. If you have one of
those available then choosing whatever system they are familiar with
could be a good choice.


--
Bernard Peek