The kid’s grandparents got him an Amazon Fire tablet and I loathe the thing. It teaches literally nothing about computing and the games they have for kids are barely even games, and are more focusing on advertising various IPs.
I’d like to get the kid started, as he learns to read, on something that will be more useful than detrimental, let that soft little brain soak up some actual computer science, literacy. I teach him about basic electrical circuits and how that translates to computing, if, and, or, xor, nor, etc. He’s got some familiar with hex (colors) and the concept of binary (on/off).
But what to get for a first computer? I almost want to get him something Linux based and turn him loose. Is there anything like that, that would require him to learn some command prompt and basic computing skills?
Every time and try and Google it, I get a bunch of crap suggestions and ads.
I don’t have a five-year-old, but if I did, I would. Worse he can do is wipe what’s on it. Can just reinstall the OS.
Maybe also hand them a simple programming environment. When I was a kid, starting kids out with Logo was a pretty easy way to go. Pretty sure that current Linux distros have some Logo variant, lets you make pretty pictures. Dunno if that’s still considered an effective route to get kids interested today.
kagis
It looks like, in Debian trixie, there’s kturtle and ucblogo; the latter was written for university students, though.
For a five-year-old, if it’s a laptop, I’d probably get something relatively-inexpensive (unless you don’t care about the financial aspect). If you can install a Linux distro on it, can probably use any old secondhand laptop, even. Don’t think that the brand matters that much, as long as one can get it up and running.
A point someone made before, though, on a Reddit discussion I was reading talking about how “kids these days can’t use computers any more, just mobile OSes” – kids used to need to learn to use a computer if they wanted to play video games, so they had a major incentive. A lot of games are accessible via mobile OSes today, so that may degrade the appeal. YouTube/TikTok are accessible on both.
There’s a genre of programming video games. Steam doesn’t list suggested age ranges, though, so shrugs.
https://store.steampowered.com/search/?sort_by=Reviews_DESC&tags=5432&supportedlang=english&ndl=1
I haven’t played much by way of programming games myself – I mean, I’ve got enough real-world programming stuff that I’d do – so I can’t recommend much personally. Played some Mac-specific Corewars knockoff years back. When I got into programming, it was because personal computers shipped with an actual – if simple – programming environment built into it.
Problem is, what you’re talking about is really a child-rearing problem, not a technical problem. I don’t know how one makes engineeringy-stuff appealing relative to non-engineeringy stuff. I didn’t have a smartphone with YouTube and TikTok and a huge library of video games as a kid.
I did Logo back in the 80s on Apple ][s and I still remember it. Definitely recommended and I’m surprised that schools don’t try to incorporate things like this more.