Hello all,
So I have this old Samsung RV520 laptop. You can see the specs there. I’ve installed and reinstalled a few different linux distros on it for the past 12 years or so, the last one being Arch (btw) which is what I use as my daily driver on my main desktop as well (by the btw). But I really don’t need this laptop anymore, so I was thinking I’d give it as a birthday present to my friend’s son, who turns 2 this month. It would be used as a “media station” to basically just play kids’ videos from Youtube.
The problem is that I basically need to install an extremely windows-like (or otherwise simple) distro on it, because while my linux-fu is somewhat high level, my friend uses windows daily so system maintenance must be simple. Ubuntu is for me the obvious choice, but I’m not sure if the laptop can even run it anymore :D of course the HDD in it is also 16 years old and I’m pretty sure I’ll upgrade it to an SSD before set up. So, taking all this preamble into account, what would you recommend? Some Ubuntu-derivative, pure Debian, maybe even Arch with linux-lts? Give me your thoughts!
Side note but if possible you could probably get a cheap SSD to replace the internal HDD which is likely to be the bottleneck of the system by now. Otherwise there’s a bunch of great suggestions here.
I’m sorry to judge you, but I don’t think a 2 year old should be using a computer.
I think it’s important for kids to learn how to really use a computer (instead of just a smartphone), but it’s mostly important to show them they can have fun away from screens.
2 years old need to learn interaction with other people.
That’s how they learn language.
So, spend time with them, not the screen. Screen time will come by itself.
In fact there’s data of development delays if kids are exposed to screen at early ages. That is because our eyes like movement, but screen picture doesn’t provide meaningful world context. Especially games.
Only personal interaction gives words in meaningful action context.
My wife is speech pathologist, so I am sharing what I wax told.
We have a friend, who didn’t listen to no screen time. Kid is delayed in development. It is serious staff and yet so simple to prevent.
Give your kids all the time you can in 1st several years.
Totally. Please keep kids away from screens as long as possible.
For this laptop I recommend mx linux fluxbox edition. You also have a 32 bit version.
I started with Commodore 64 when I was two and I turned out passible
The biggest problem in my mind is not only the fact of having a computer but much more to see this “”“”“for kid”“”“”" videos. YouTube and the internet is not a place for kids, and 2 years old is really really young to use this
I used a computer without any hard limits since I was 2 and I turned out
homose🏳️🌈just fine.Actually on second thought I have crushing depression and feel terribly unsatisfied at my job as a software engineer, maybe you have a point.
I used Arch for years, but found that I got everything at the same speed from Fedora for fraction of effort.
I have seen your Debian/Arch addendum, but since it’s meant to be easy and for simple media consumption only, how about Fedora Silverblue with a couple of Flatpak games for kids? You’ll barely have to look after it as it’s immutable, will update itself and the stock Fedora Gnome setup is pretty basic and simple enough for a smart kid. Plus he’s two- I doubt he will need anything outside of Flatpaks and a paint program.
Linux Mint will work wonderfully on it. It has 4 GB RAM and a cpu that scores 1220 CPU points on passmark benchmark. That’s more than enough to run Mint with Cinnamon – which is very Windows-like, and the recommended distro for windows users.
I’d suggest you install it for him, and you configure it as it should (go through the prefs). Also, disable a couple of startup things found in the utility in the prefs, e.g. the wizard and the reports, to save ram. To save even more ram, install chrome for your friend (I know, I know, Firefox is there, but Chrome uses less ram on youtube – almost 2/3s). On a 4 gb laptop, for someone who specifically wants to use youtube, that matters. And along with it, ublock origin on the medium level, so it can block youtube ads.
uBlock Medium requires some unbreaking of websites, so i would avoid it on this laptop. Ungoogled Chromium could be a good replacement for chrome.
Ungoogled Chromium doesn’t autoupdate though. Chrome and Chromium do.
Weird (but not really unexpected) that Chrome uses less RAM in this case. I think I’ll consider this too, thanks!
You have an opportunity. Give him a pre-installed Linux and a terminal, along with a page of commands that he can run to do neat things… including starting the GUI to watch his favourite (ideally pre-downloaded) videos, running some demos, etc.
Don’t make it too easy, but not too hard (2 you said? Can type a few characters though…)… Add to it over the years, unlocking the power, and guiding him to discover more by himself.
Kids won’t become tech savvy if we hand everything to them on a silver platter, with touch screens, controllers, and flashy games. It can be bland and boring, until they do something.
It might just be the most life changing gift they ever receive.
Oh yeah, that sounds good. He’s a smart kid already, for sure, and his dad is an old nerd (like me tbh, except 10 years my senior) so yeah, might just do something like this… But maybe at first keep it as a Youtube-machine, until he learns to speak and comprehend more stuff. But thank you for the idea, though! Really didn’t consider this before.
That would be wonderful! I got the opportunity to try Linux when I was like 5 (didn’t know it was Linux) and even though I was already very interested in computers, I didn’t know I was using Linux nor how capable it was.
It took time until I had my own laptop and could start learning new things, and only knowing about Linux from afar since I wasn’t able to install it myself and didn’t have any adults that could teach me, but you could be that person to this kid (if they’re interested in the future ofc)!
Addendum: I should add that the distro should be Debian or Arch based basically (as these are the ones I know best, or have the most experience with), because if something doesn’t work (for some reason) I will be the one debugging it, and I kinda don’t want to learn a new distro and its quirks in order to do so. Because I’m lazy like that. So I’m gravitating towards maybe Manjaro or L/Xubuntu.
Lubuntu has more done to it to make it run on older/slower/less RAM hardware than Xubuntu. Xubuntu is better for modern but low powered machines.
For stuff that’s actually relatively old and low-power, I’ve had much more luck with Lubuntu.
Debian with XFCE works well on my old netbook (~15 yr old).
When you said 16 years, I was expecting something like a core 2 duo and 2gb of ram, but you got some nice specs in there. Any common distro will run fine. Users coming from windows tend to like linux mint, so that’s my suggestion.
Just realized it’s 14 not 16, but yeah I actually used that thing for gaming! Even games that were kinda new back then, up until Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor which ran at like 10 FPS. Thankfully I got enough money to buy and build my first desktop after that. Which served me faithfully for some 10ish years with no upgrades, even running RDR2 (with graphics so low it could be considered minus), which actually kinda surprised me!
NixOS with gnome
With 4GB RAM, a dedicated GPU and a new SSD, you’ll be able to install and run any Linux distro.
For someone who doesn’t want to deal with maintenance, I’d recommend Fedora Kinoite.
The desktop is similar to Windows, you install all programs through the app store, updates are installed when ready during the next reboot, when something goes wrong you can just reboot into the last working state, and the command line is almost entirely useless.Aurora is a downstream Kinoite distro by the Universal Blue project. It is tweaked to be a bit more user friendly and has a lot of tweaks and changes. I recommend anyone try it out.
Maybe Mint XFCE. It should be really nice after 22.1 releases. I always suggest the Crucial BX500 as a cheap SSD upgrade. It’s fantastic for the price.
Mint xfce runs perfectly for me with the integrated Intel graphics on a sff dell from 2011.
Xfce is also much more customizable in appearance than just about any other DE.
What about Manjaro with XFCE? That would have graphical package manager/settings/etc out of the box without being very heavy
