http://miriamruiz.es/art/debian_kids_small.png

What is this

Debian Kids is a Debian Pure Blend project targeted towards kids, following the path started by the Debian Jr. Project. The goal is to make a system attractive for children of all ages, focusing mainly in the age range up to 14. By the time children reach their teens, they should be comfortable with using Debian without any special modifications.

How to achieve this

We want to have children involved in the design and development of Debian Kids so the ultimate goal would be to develop a distribution by kids for kids. Our goal would be in first place to develop the tools needed for this. It is also important not to diverge from Debian, so that the repositories will be the same. This will make it possible to customize a standard Debian installation for kids, and also to provide a natural path for kids to a natural progression towards using Debian as an adult. Since all along, they are using Debian itself, at some point, they leave Debian Kids behind without ever noticing that they did.

The most important objective is to make kids proud of their systems, and willing to show their neighbors how cool they are. We won't be targeting systems with low resources (there are other Debian derivatives that focus on this target). Current average computers kids have are quite powerful and, while not targeting highest range of computers either, we want to develop a system that they feel as cool. This will probably imply developing different attractive desktop themes, using a desktop with visual effects, having a usability level adequate for each age range, and the possibility of sharing with others what they do through the network (themes, backgrounds, icons, etc).

Ideas

We need to develop a web site targeted towards kids to promote both the project and the exchange of ideas. It should be collaborative, and it will make it possible to get feedback from the kids using the systems.

We have to develop different desktop themes that seem attractive to kids with different background, gender, ethnicity etc.

Resources