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OpenBSD NOT on the Desktop
2007.05.11 - I've finally compeleted the download of the 4.1 i386 release of OpenBSD and am way excited about trying the system as the desktop client for my sister-in-law as a major requirement for her (as if she knows?) is a functional Office Productivity Suite (aka as MS Office replacement --> OpenOffice.)
The other major requirements work just fine, already work well but have gathered further enhancements. Desktop Publishing/Scribus, Email/Evolution-or-Thunderbird, Internet Browser/Thunderbird.
For the kids, two great additions are childsplay.sf.net and gcompris, two 'educational' programs for OSS operating systems.
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I have been using the 4.0 release for my own personal end-user test machine, but there were two major shortcomings. Kwrite and Abilon are not even shadows of Microsoft Word, and I am continually getting corruption when working directly with with my USB Key Memory Device.
The ports work for 4.1 released OpenOffice 2.1 so I really needed to test an install (since I'm using Oo 2.2 in Windows.) Fortunately 2.2 has already been released for OpenBSD in the 'current' development tree as well as a lot of great news on the Web about contributions of OpenBSD Ports Committers to the OpenOffice effort.
Non-showstopper, childsplay installs but zaps/kills X Windows when it runs. Obviously there's a core dump somewhere that I should use for debugging?
Showstopper. UNFORTUNATELY, 4.0 and 4.1 I on the machine that I'm working on, both releases corrupt files when working directly with files on the USB Memory Stick. Adding insult to injury, I cannot transfer images from my camera, doing an image transfer generates a fault before any images can be transferred.
Since, on this same machine, the camera image transfer works fine using Ubuntu 7.04, likewise I have not encountered file corruptions when editing files (like this post) directly on the USB Stick, I'm hazarding that for this USB hardware there is better behavior from the Linux distribution than OpenBSD.
There's Linux binaries for using the scanner, printer for this installation so things just got to go the Linux direction anyway.
Shut-up and show the code.
The better USB and childsplay soluition would be to diagnose the problem further, and provide some bug reporting to the OpenBSD project, but unfortunately this installations is already months behind (that's what happens when you're the computer tech of the family) I've decided to go with what works now, and put a note down to see if I can replicate the problem on another machine I can keep for testing.
Ubuntu 7.04 is now installing gcompris, childsplay.
Childsplay: Childsplay is a suite of educational games for young children, a lot like gcompris. Childsplay uses a plug-in system for the games, so you might want to check the Childsplay plug-ins page. I have tried Childsplay myself and it had quite a few fun educational games. Childplay has just been recently updated as well Childsplay and plug-ins are GPL licensed and are tested on GNU/Linux, FreeBSD and the Windows platforms. (98/ME/2K/XP)
For more info and downloads visit http://childsplay.sourceforge.net/
GCompris: GCompris is a single program that has many parts. It is an entire suite of educational tools packaged together and aimed at 3-8 year olds. Within the suite are-among many other things-word and number games, color-matching and memory exercises and geography quizzes. There's loads of educational functionality in GCompris, and it is graduated, which means the child cannot proceed to a later exercise until they have mastered the earlier ones. GCompris can be installed in one of a number of languages and has a friendly soundtrack and voice-over. Very good educational development tool for children it is also very fun as well.
For more info and downloads visit http://gcompris.net/
A nice little list of Child Safe software is at Cyber Punk Cafe
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