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Comment by xrd | Hacker News Reader

They probably will want to play games. It's a slippery slope. But if you go that route:

Steam works amazingly well. And you can set up family controls.

Roblox works great using "Sober" I don't recommend letting them play Roblox but I'm stuck with it.

Minecraft and Curseforge work well, too.

Time Keeper Next is a great time limiting control system. If you have a little awareness of docker you can run it in a container and even access it on your phone through an admin gui. If you need help on that get my email from my profile and I'll happily share my details.

My kids 8,10,12 know how to use the command line. I'm really proud of them.

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This is how my co-worker's son turned from a happy, energetic 8-year old into a 400 pound 20-something who does nothing but play games as soon as he comes home from work. It consumes his whole life.

Steam? I'm not sure what you're referring to by "this". All they're recommending is a standard setup that millions of people have. If your co-worker's son turned into a 400 pound 20 something, that sounds like a separate set of problems, not based on Steam or using Linux.

Agreed. I think Linux is, 800% less predatory (I love Trump math) than Microsoft Windows. Just booting it up clean is inviting a salesperson shilling all kinds of junk to your kids.

I don't disagree at all. It's such a complicated problem, unless you have all the kids in your kid's circle prohibited from gaming the peer pressure is intense. I am starting to come to the conclusion that you can't really limit them (my kids were getting an hour on weekdays and two on weekends) but then my son especially fiends the rest of the weekend for screens and it is constant conflict. I'm at wits end. But they exploit any gaps in parent alignment and then you have predatory gaming companies where PM bonuses are tied to time in game. It's unhealthy for kids and families.

That's a problem with the kid, not the games.

If that was enough to change him that much, then something's really wrong. I doubt it was just games, personally.

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