Linux on the Scouting Desktop

I spent the weekend in Harderwijk, as a leader of a Internet related Scouting activity. We were unable to bring too much fancy new hardware, because of insurance issues so I was stuck reclycling a couple of Pentium II systems. As I already got rid of all my Windows CD-ROMs, the only option I had was installing Debian GNU/Linux.

It has been some years since I last tried Linux on 'normal end users' and it has been an pleasant experience. Sure, there were a couple of things that did not work as well because in my limited time I was unable to configure/test everything, but all in all it just worked.

The kids spent time creating their own homepages using Firefox and Kate. For most kids it just worked ok and some kids actually noticed things that they liked better then in MS Windows. Next time I will make sure to fix all the details, like automounting USB and CD-ROM drives.

Today talked one of the kids through the install Debian on an old PC using MSN and pointed another to the Knoppix download site. Good weekend for Open Source ;)