I taught adult education in college and always introduced people to computing with “DOS for Dummies” even though Windows was the OS they interacted with. By teaching them in a command line only environment first I could then easily teach them the desktop environment because they understood what was going on behind the scenes. I think the same could be done with Linux.
I am convinced that everyone, including kids, should be forced to learn computers starting from a command line only. “You can’t have a GUI until you can operate competently without one.” Admittedly, I’m useless with a terminal myself, and a little scared of 'em, but that’s actually why I think this. I wish I wasn’t so scared of the CLI and reliant on “pointing and grunting” rather than “using my words”. I wish I hadn’t “learned computers” starting at 4 with shortcuts that make things easier but abstract away things I really should have had to know from the beginning.
Yeah, but the kid has to be older, 12 is too young for that IMO.
Still, a Linux install with a DE will do nicely. He wants to do this and this, but there is no GUI for it, tell him to open up the terminal and type in the following commands, see what happens after you hit Enter… it always brings a smile, even with adults ☺️, they feel like they’re hackers or something 😂.
Then they usually wanna know what each of the commands and options do, and this is where I know I have a great student ☺️.
I taught adult education in college and always introduced people to computing with “DOS for Dummies” even though Windows was the OS they interacted with. By teaching them in a command line only environment first I could then easily teach them the desktop environment because they understood what was going on behind the scenes. I think the same could be done with Linux.
I am convinced that everyone, including kids, should be forced to learn computers starting from a command line only. “You can’t have a GUI until you can operate competently without one.” Admittedly, I’m useless with a terminal myself, and a little scared of 'em, but that’s actually why I think this. I wish I wasn’t so scared of the CLI and reliant on “pointing and grunting” rather than “using my words”. I wish I hadn’t “learned computers” starting at 4 with shortcuts that make things easier but abstract away things I really should have had to know from the beginning.
Yeah, but the kid has to be older, 12 is too young for that IMO.
Still, a Linux install with a DE will do nicely. He wants to do this and this, but there is no GUI for it, tell him to open up the terminal and type in the following commands, see what happens after you hit Enter… it always brings a smile, even with adults ☺️, they feel like they’re hackers or something 😂.
Then they usually wanna know what each of the commands and options do, and this is where I know I have a great student ☺️.