DoudouLinux is a free linux for Kids. It has variety of Educational and memory, word guessing games, mazes, puzzle games, reading games, games to make mathematics interesting, games to teach your child science in a simple way, strategy games like Chess, Oware, BarGame, Connect4 and the list goes on. Brush up your kids geography with applications like KGeography and Marble. You can play those classics: Tic-Tac-Toe and HangMan. DoudouLinux has a simple, something that your kid will find easy going with.
If you want your kid to get a nice experience dealing with computers then DoudouLinux is something that you would need to introduce your kid to. DoudouLinux is an operating system based on Linux platform and specially developed for kids. It is lightweight and can easily cope up with even a computer with not much advanced system configuration. The interface is just like what a child would expect to. Lets see how we can put this in your computer.
How to get it to run?
The installation part is quite simple. You just have to download the CD image from the website and you can burn it on to a DVD or install it on to a flash drive. You can even run it from a Virtual Machine software installed in your existing Operating System like Windows, Linux or Mac etc.
When you boot it up, you can choose to “Start DoudouLinux” or “Start DoudouLinux without persistence”. The second option that I just mentioned means that the changes that you make while you use DoudouLinux, will not be saved for the next time. You can simply click on “Start DoudouLinux” to start it up.
Lets look at some of the games in this free Linux for kids.
Games and Applications for Kids
Maze Game
Maze games have been around for a while now. We have played it a thousand times when we were kids. I somehow, still find it interesting. Kids are going to enjoy playing this game. Help the long lost penguin find his way home and you get to solve another level.
PotatoGuy
I am not good with matching stuff so I messed up while putting the eyes, ears and lips in place (not so appropriate for this potato guy though). You can dress him up and make him look the way you want. Stand by and watch your kid’s amazing creativity. I am sure you’ll be surprised at what a child can do to this potato guy (it’s proven that kids are more creative than adults; they don’t have those walls of rational thoughts set up yet).
HangMan
Ah, the classic HangMan game. I missed it and good to see this game back here again. From the hint given on the screen, you just have to guess the word. A simple game and kids are going to love it.
Memory Game
This is one of the games in this free Linux for kids, to give kids a little brain exercise. You just have to remember the image as you click on a box and try to find the hidden pair (the same image hidden somewhere else). This is not the only game of its kind that you can find in this Linux Distro but this is something that I liked.
Marble Desktop Globe
An awesome Atlas application that emulates a real life “Globe”. You can view the longitude and latitude, zoom in to view other places nearby the location, view the legend, choose a flat map, globe and mercator view, search for a location etc. You can also view the details for the Moon with a 360 degree view of it. This is a must have application and would help a child in his/her learning process.
Apart from the games, we have other useful applications too.
Translator
This free Linux for kids, also has an inbuilt Translator that can translate English sentences to Spanish and vice-versa. This can come handy and help your child in his/her Spanish classes. You might get tempted to use it to learn some phrases in Spanish.
Laby
This application can be used to give kids a hang of programming. You can write your own program in the panel on the right and run the program. The ant will obey the commands as the program runs and acts accordingly. This is just like the classic “Logo” Programming that was aimed at giving kids a taste of programming.
Epiphany
Epiphany is the inbuilt browser with DoudouLinux. You can quickly retrieve information from Wikipedia, Wikijunior, Wikinews, view maps from OpenStreetMap, access OpenClipart Library etc. It gets you the weather updates for the city you’re in. You can of course, get weather information for another city too. A link to Librivox lets you listen to online audiobooks. Epiphany has features of a good browser but customized for kids to make it easier for them to fetch information from the internet.
Virtual MIDI Piano Keyboard
This is an excellent software that comes with DoudouLinux. It can emulate sounds for various musical instruments. You can choose amongst the list of instruments available and the list is not a small one. You can set the velocity, change the Base Octave, channel for output etc. This is something a child is going to enjoy playing around with.
DoudouLinux also has a music player, movie player, song writer software, sound recorder, Cheese – to capture images from Webcam and Hydrogen Drum – A excellent software to create music. Apart from some applications and games that we talked about, DoudouLinux is a stuffed teddy filled with games and educational application that your kid will love to play with.
Conclusion
Though DoudouLinux is a free Linux for kids but they have not forgotten to include applications that would involve kids of all ages. They have made sure that the interface is easy enough for even a 3 year old to use it. Every game and software that a kid would require is pre-installed into DoudouLinux. The browser with this Linux is customized to retrieve useful information easily.
All in all, it is going to be the best computer experience a kid can get while using DoudouLinux. So, get your kid a copy of DoudouLinux and tell me how it was.
