Re: A single attractive, functional, desktop for all ages

On Thu, 8 Mar 2007 21:12:00 +0100 (CET)
Andreas Tille <[email protected]> wrote:
> PS: No, I will not take part in a Gnome / KDE / Xfce flame war.
>      I just expressed my opinion and will be quiet about this topic
>      from now on.

There's no need to censor yourself on this matter. :)

Neither do we have to settle on One True Desktop Environment.  Taking
our cue from Debian Desktop[1], we can support all three.  The
live-package devs have made this easy for us to experiment with by
adding gnome-junior, kde-junior and xfce-junior package lists.

So if you care about XFCE, please submit your ideas/screenshots/configs
for a default XFCE desktop that would include debian-jr material and
appeal to a broad range of ages.  Likewise if you care about GNOME/KDE.


I'm thinking:

- some custom artwork (I have it from Gustavo Franco of the Debian
Desktop group that Valessio Brito[2] is willing to help us with this).

- a large panel with some buttons to launch apps with universal appeal
to all (well, most) ages:

  - default menu

  - iceweasel (with some kid-oriented bookmarks to free/open
resources: desktop backgrounds, music, videos, our own site, etc.)

  - terminal

  - tuxpaint

  - desktop toy (xpenguins start/stop)

  - a sampling of games (frozen bubble, supertux, tuxmath, tuxtype)

  - xmms applet

  - clock applet

  - panel toy applet (whatever default toy applet there is for the DE)

  - logout button

The idea is not to be comprehensive, but to provide easy access to an
initial sampling of things a child might want to play with right away
when they first start using their accounts, I expect each child will
remove/add different buttons to suit their tastes & needs.


[1] http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-desktop/
[2] See
http://debian-community.org/ for a sample of his work; this page has
some of Valessio's design ideas for that site.
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