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Debian Junior Desktop live image

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72 pointsFergusArgyll6 comments

In case you are -as I was- wondering: Debian Junior [0] "is a Debian Pure Blend [1] to make Debian an OS that children will enjoy using."

[0] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianJr

[1] https://www.debian.org/blends/

Apparently it has been inactive for years:

> The project is inactive since few years. 2021-12 Stefan will try to relaunch this project.

https://wiki.debian.org/DebianJr

Here's part of Stefan's email on the mailing list:

  Debian Junior Desktop has been activated for weekly live image
  builds [1]. I think that this "Developer Edition" of Debian
  Junior is an important milestone for our project. People who are
  interested to support development, can download the image [2] and
  provide feedback, do testing and contribute to the project.

  Thanks to the people who helped to get it done!

  [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-cd/2024/11/msg00020.html
   https://lists.debian.org/debian-jr/2024/11/msg00008.html
  [2] https://get.debian.org/images/weekly-live-builds/amd64/iso-hybrid/

That's absolutely wonderful. I got my nephew on Sugar and he's enjoyed it a lot but it's got a hella confusing UI that even stumps me. I've been hoping to install something Windows 98y but packaged for kids for him for years. This looks perfect.

https://www.sugarlabs.org/

As far as I can tell, this adheres to the free software philosophy, so no non-free software (except some firmware). Which means, no (mainstream) computer games. I'm afraid kids are not concerned with philosophical debates about software freedom and will demand Roblox (or whatever kids play these days).

I imagine it would really help with adoption if a care was taken that modern computer games are easy to install (using proton maybe) and run smoothly, but that's understandably not something Debian people want to focus on.

I couldn't find anything about games (except that Debian Junior has "some games" preinstalled), sorry if that's explained somewhere.

I love the reference to Dinosaur Jr.

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