Part 1

Background

Doudou” is a french word for the teddy bear or blanket that children love to carry around and hug. In that context,DoudouLinux is a GNU/Linux distribution designed for young children from age two to seven.<ref name = "DoudouLinux: You know, for kids">Linux info from the source (Last accessed October 17, 2011).</ref>

It is a system that aims at making computer use as easy and pleasant as possible for children. Founded by the French Jean-Michel Philippe,its first release “Gondwana” was released in June 2011 and is based on a minimal Debian “Lenny” linux system.

DoudouLinux is officially available in 25 languages<ref name = "DistroWatch">DistroWatch (Last accessed October 17, 2011).</ref> and can be downloaded it on the DoudouLinux homepage as an ISO image file of approximately 693 MB in size.

Installation/Startup

Installation

The minimum requirements to run DoudouLinux are:<ref name = "Requierements">Downloads (Last accessed October 18, 2011).</ref>

256 MB memory
800 MHz processor
800×600 dots display

I used VMWare Workstation and allocated 8GB for the virtual machine and 512MB of RAM.

The installation is fairly easy and fast(around 30 seconds)[Figure 1]
No problems were encountered since there is minimal system configuration or management options and the system does not request setting up a username and password.

Startup

At boot time,there is an "Activities Menu" displayed that offers seven session options: [Figure 2]

Gamine
Pysycache
Childsplay
TuxPaint
GCompris
Mini DoudouLinux
Whole DoudouLinux

The first five options are single applications sessions while Mini DoudouLinux is a session with a reduced set of applications offered. The Whole DoudouLinux option was choosen.

Basic Operation

As shown in the activities menu(Figure 2) the applications are ordered by increasing difficulty.From the two year old child who discovers the mouse and the keyboard(Gamine and Pysycache) to more experienced users with educational suites such as Childsplay and GCompris.

In the Whole DoudouLinux session,close to fifty applications are offered and they are grouped in categories,by type(i.e Work,Learn,Enjoy) that have their own tab in DoudouLinux application Launcher.[Figure 4]
The general games category includes standard puzzle and non-violent arcade fare, plus some common card and board games. Hours were spent playing the games from the Enjoy category.

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Usage Evaluation

**Figure 4** Applications grouped in Categories

The DoudouLinux design goals are, in my view, met and exceeded.The system runs fast since there is less configuration to do.The icons are very colorful,suggestive and large enough for children.

Depending on the age of the child,the mouse speed can be easily adjusted as well as the sound output. In some applications,hovering the mouse on an item provides sound instruction.

The system contain plenty of interactive and tactile-experice tools that respond to single-clicks for better ease-of-use. Since window management would,presumably, be tricky with young children,all the applications or game run in full-screen mode.

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References

Part 2

Software Packaging

**Figure 5** The work tab in DoudouLinux

**Figure 6** The accessories tab in DoudouLinux

Packaging Format and Utilities

As Doudoulinux is Debian based,It uses the same package format.deb with the main Debian package management program, dpkg. Since DoudouLinux is based on a minimal Debian “Lenny” Linux system and is geared toward childrens,there is no need for the higher level package management tools such as aptitude or the graphical package manager Synaptic.However,the Advanced Packaging Tool (APT) that relies on dpkg, is installed as well as the utilities for manipulating .deb files: dpkg-deb and dpkg-split.

Listing Installed Packages

As mentioned above,there are no graphical package manager,such as Synaptic, installed so the only way to get a list of the installed packages is through the terminal.Accessing the terminal isn't obvious since DoudouLinux tries to hide that aspect from children.One has to go to the "Work" tab [Figure 5]and then the "Accessories" tab[Figure 6]. From the command line, you get the list of the packages by typing "dpkg --list".

COMP 3000 2011 Report: DoudouLinux