LXDE for nursery school?

[daveysprocketbrew]

I am going to (try to) be installing PCLOS LXDE on a couple of old PII computers currently running Win2000.  If I suceed, I will put on Gcompris, Tux Paint, Childsplay, etc.  I don't run LXDE at home myself, so I need to ask.  How do you adjust the icon size and force all applications to start fullscreen?  I found where to make the bottom panel and icons larger already.  Also, are there any other applications for 2-4 year olds I may look into?

[melodie]

I am going to (try to) be installing PCLOS LXDE on a couple of old PII computers currently running Win2000.  If I suceed, I will put on Gcompris, Tux Paint, Childsplay, etc.  I don't run LXDE at home myself, so I need to ask.  How do you adjust the icon size and force all applications to start fullscreen?  I found where to make the bottom panel and icons larger already.  Also, are there any other applications for 2-4 year olds I may look into?

Hi,

There is an Edu project at http://mypclinuxos.com/forum : Educative Software and I am currently working on improving a ultra-light PCLinuxOS Openbox version with lxde panel in it. I just solved one of the problems yesterday, and just did a new menu button now.

Here is the thread about it:
pclinuxos-openbox-mini 2010-7_04 : on top of cli.iso. I'll upload a new one soon I hope. I am also hoping that a new package be made so that lxpanel could be fully "standalone" for the shutdow/reboot button... I did ask a package for a "shutdown-dialog.py" modified, in the package section requests.

There are other applications for 2-4 years old : such as Gamine. (Other than that I'm not so sure, but Gcompris is already very rich).

To get applications to start full screen, you should fix this in the options of each of them, then copy the hidden directory of each one to /etc/skel if you want the changes to be the default for all new users.

Regards,
Mélodie

[daveysprocketbrew]

Thanks, Melodie.

I was actually following that thread and commented on it.  You and Crow are doing a great job so far.  That will be a great project.  School here starts next week, so I wanted to get them started while you guys work on that.  I am still having hardware issues, though.  The old computers (donated) have no cd drive, so I tried USB, but I can't make the BIOS boot from them.  I borrowed an external CD, but it takes of both of the available USB slots and I can't use my USB mouse, so now I have to find an old mouse.....then I can try again.  I will keep an eye on your project as I'm sure it will take up some of your precious spare time.  Good luck with it.  It is very worthwhile and definitely on the right track. 

[melodie]

I was actually following that thread and commented on it.  You and Crow are doing a great job so far.

Thanks. 

School here starts next week

Here it starts tomorrow.

I am still having hardware issues, though.  The old computers (donated) have no cd drive, so I tried USB, but I can't make the BIOS boot from them.  I borrowed an external CD, but it takes of both of the available USB slots and I can't use my USB mouse, so now I have to find an old mouse.....then I can try again.

USB generally can take USB hubs, which are not too expensive. Boot from USB could be obtained eventually with the help of a small program named plop boot manager. If the machines have floppy reader, you could try to use the floppy image created by Slitaz.org:
http://mirror.slitaz.org/floppies/

If you have a CD-ROM, an USB port and an USB key or a network card, but you can't boot these devices directly, then try floppy-grub4dos first. This 1.44Mb floppy provides tiny programs to boot these devices without BIOS support and some other tools.

Note that the plop boot manager used is not specialized for one distro.

I will keep an eye on your project as I'm sure it will take up some of your precious spare time.  Good luck with it.  It is very worthwhile and definitely on the right track.

I keep on working on it and asking help for it too, from other people. I can't figure it out all myself, particularly this graphical logout gives me some hard time to figure out.

Regards,
Mélodie

[smileeb]

daveysprocketbrew, try and get one of these powered ports and you can do more with those little copmuters you are trying to set up maybe.

http://reviews.cablesunlimited.com/product-reviews/USB-and-FireWire/Hubs/USB/p/USB__1870-USB-2-0-7-Port-Multi-TT-mode-USB-Hub-with-Power.html

[Georgetoon]

I wrote about TuxTyping in my blog.  A really fun application/game to learn typing.

http://www.georgetoon.com/blog/stop-typing-typos/