On Thu, 06 May 2010 16:00:59 +0100, Graeme wrote:

The problem. A nine year old son who is *desperate* to download and
play with Ubantu, for reasons unknown.

Find out.

Does he want to learn how Linux works, or does he want to just dive in
and use something that's relatively painless to get up and running but
isn't Windows?

If the former, something like Slackware. If the latter, something like
Ubuntu.

(with a Father who knows a little about DOS and Windows but nothing
of Linux).

It all depends on your type of mind, I think. I tend to like stuff that's
clear and concise and just does one task rather than trying to do a
million things at once; I got started with SLS in 1993 (which later
became Slackware) and it all just Made Sense - all the various bits had
well-defined jobs, configuration was quick and easy and not at all
confusing.

These days I look at something like Ubuntu, and I just don't get on with
it - everything seems unwieldy and bloated and confusing to me (in other
words, it retains many of the faults of MS Windows). It's the wrong
choice for me, but that doesn't necessarily make it bad...

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.

Other options are to use the windows box as a remote GUI - or, if he just
wants to learn Linux/UNIX, don't even bother with the GUI at all and just
telnet or ssh to the Linux machine from the windows one via a DOS window.

cheers

Jules