[NCLUG] Linux Alternatives & Necessities for Home Use

[Michael Riversong]

GIMP is a very powerful program.  I actually did successfully manage to get students using it, even a couple of first graders.  When teaching it, one has to be methodical, and make it clear that the prescribed procedures for file handling have to be done precisely.  Other than that, i found that even young students were indeed able to comprehend tool selection, cut & paste, and gradients, among other things.  It's not for every student, but those who have demonstrated some general affinity for computers as such have usually done well with GIMP.  You just have to find an appropriate gradient.

Knoppix for Kids includes an excellent paint program called TuxPaint which most of my students came to love.  Other than getting it on the standard Open Source Education Foundation CD, i'm not sure how you would download this program.  I haven't seen it anywhere else.  The standard CD runs well as a live disk, although i was not able to save files easily in that mode.  For various reasons, i never had occasion to try fully installing that system.

I recently found a little mounting program in my Fedora Core 1 installation that works quite well.  It's tucked away in the System Tools menu -- i think it's called something like "User Mounting Tool".  It automatically recognized an extra CD drive i had installed.  (Sorry i can't get more precise on this tool, but i'm using a different computer today.)

Keep us posted on your endeavors!

-----Original Message-----
From: Rich Young <rich at experienceplus.com>
Sent: Aug 16, 2005 1:54 PM
To: Northern Colorado Linux Users Group <nclug at nclug.org>
Subject: [NCLUG] Linux Alternatives & Necessities for Home Use

Hey, all, looks like we're taking the plunge (for the second time) to a
windows-free life.  To pull this off, I'm going to need to be able to
adequately replace certain windows-only applications, and I also will
need to know about a couple hardware issues.  I'm hoping the list can
help.

SOFTWARE
Open Office takes care of most of our application issues, but I'm
curious about replacing Paint Shop Pro.  The GIMP is a little too
unfriendly for the rest of the family, I think, but your basic kiddie
paint program doesn't do enough.  Any suggestions?

---

HARDWARE
Anyone have any experience with the automount behaviour of those
internal multi-card readers on modern Fedora installations?  I'd like to
get one, but I'm not sure I can convince my family to learn to mount
manually.

Does the WinModem issue still apply, or can I expect most new internal
modems to work with the machine?  (Yes, I'm still on dialup....)

Are there any issues I need to know about in adding a new (second) hard
drive to the existing system?
---


--Rich

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I'm Rich Young, and I approved this message.

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Michael Riversong

Cheyenne, Wyoming

Beautiful Music for the Glory of God

http://home.earthlink.net/~mriversong