Gnome desktop for 5 y/o
Hi, I have a 6.4-STABLE machine running in command line only for my Apache webserver. I'm thinking of installing a Gnome desktop on it for my 5 y/o grandson and grown daughter to use so they won't be pestering me to use my pc. The 5 y/o won't need anything except Firefox, some disk-based games and Parental Controls. For the Parental Controls, I need to limit the websites he can visit, and the time of day he can use the computer. The daughter will only need Firefox and a decent word processor. The computer is a P3 600, 256mb ram, ATI 3D Rage IIc video, plenty of disk space. Will Gnome2 or gnome-lite be faster? What is available for Parental Controls? Should I forget it because it will be too slow based on the machine's hardware? -- Later, Charles ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Gnome desktop for 5 y/o
i think it could go fine on this computer, use gnome lite and also add the needed ports to have a fairly nice system (gnome-backgrounds etc...). compile from ports with some optimizations (-O2 -fno-strict-aliasing and consider if -pipe could be used or not based on your ram memory). for firefox consider you'll have probably to use also linux compatibility layer with flash (don't know if it's on 6.4) for parental control check this thread in ml: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2007-June/152543.html http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2007-July/152728.html regards ocean Charles Howse wrote: Hi, I have a 6.4-STABLE machine running in command line only for my Apache webserver. I'm thinking of installing a Gnome desktop on it for my 5 y/o grandson and grown daughter to use so they won't be pestering me to use my pc. The 5 y/o won't need anything except Firefox, some disk-based games and Parental Controls. For the Parental Controls, I need to limit the websites he can visit, and the time of day he can use the computer. The daughter will only need Firefox and a decent word processor. The computer is a P3 600, 256mb ram, ATI 3D Rage IIc video, plenty of disk space. Will Gnome2 or gnome-lite be faster? What is available for Parental Controls? Should I forget it because it will be too slow based on the machine's hardware? -- Later, Charles ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
RE: Gnome desktop for 5 y/o
Hi ocean, thanks for the reply. Is there a browser that will work out of the box with flash? Most of the games the 5 y/o uses are flash-based. -Original Message- From: ocean [mailto:ocean_i...@yahoo.it] Sent: Tuesday, December 08, 2009 8:30 AM To: Charles Howse Cc: 'FreeBSD-Questions' Subject: Re: Gnome desktop for 5 y/o i think it could go fine on this computer, use gnome lite and also add the needed ports to have a fairly nice system (gnome-backgrounds etc...). compile from ports with some optimizations (-O2 -fno-strict-aliasing and consider if -pipe could be used or not based on your ram memory). for firefox consider you'll have probably to use also linux compatibility layer with flash (don't know if it's on 6.4) for parental control check this thread in ml: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2007- June/152543.html http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2007- July/152728.html regards ocean Charles Howse wrote: Hi, I have a 6.4-STABLE machine running in command line only for my Apache webserver. I'm thinking of installing a Gnome desktop on it for my 5 y/o grandson and grown daughter to use so they won't be pestering me to use my pc. The 5 y/o won't need anything except Firefox, some disk-based games and Parental Controls. For the Parental Controls, I need to limit the websites he can visit, and the time of day he can use the computer. The daughter will only need Firefox and a decent word processor. The computer is a P3 600, 256mb ram, ATI 3D Rage IIc video, plenty of disk space. Will Gnome2 or gnome-lite be faster? What is available for Parental Controls? Should I forget it because it will be too slow based on the machine's hardware? -- Later, Charles ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions- unsubscr...@freebsd.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Gnome desktop for 5 y/o
On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 8:47 AM, Charles Howse cho...@charter.net wrote: Hi ocean, thanks for the reply. Is there a browser that will work out of the box with flash? Most of the games the 5 y/o uses are flash-based. Please don't top post, thanks. No there is no OOBE w/ flash. To get a reasonable experience with flash, you'll need to upgrade to 8(freebsd update) add in packages compiled for 8(don't forget the libusb stuff) then install flash-10 However if you're only goal is run flash stuff, this is probably not the OS for you. -- Adam Vande More ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
RE: Gnome desktop for 5 y/o
-Original Message- From: Adam Vande More [mailto:amvandem...@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, December 08, 2009 8:56 AM To: Charles Howse Cc: FreeBSD-Questions Subject: Re: Gnome desktop for 5 y/o On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 8:47 AM, Charles Howse cho...@charter.net wrote: Hi ocean, thanks for the reply. Is there a browser that will work out of the box with flash? Most of the games the 5 y/o uses are flash-based. Please don't top post, thanks. My apologies to the group, I forgot. :) ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Gnome desktop for 5 y/o
2009/12/8 Charles Howse cho...@charter.net -Original Message- From: Adam Vande More [mailto:amvandem...@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, December 08, 2009 8:56 AM To: Charles Howse Cc: FreeBSD-Questions Subject: Re: Gnome desktop for 5 y/o On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 8:47 AM, Charles Howse cho...@charter.net wrote: Hi ocean, thanks for the reply. Is there a browser that will work out of the box with flash? Most of the games the 5 y/o uses are flash-based. Please don't top post, thanks. My apologies to the group, I forgot. :) ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org you probably also want java as well, a lot of those children's game sites use all kind of horrible stuff. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Gnome desktop for 5 y/o
On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 8:47 AM, Charles Howse cho...@charter.net wrote: Hi ocean, thanks for the reply. Is there a browser that will work out of the box with flash? Most of the games the 5 y/o uses are flash-based. if you install the right ports on a fbsd 8.0 maybe it could just works (it's being discussed in the freebsd forums: http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=5786 gnash could also work but it's known to have some issues so i won't recommend it, possibilities are firefox+flash for windows under wine which someone says it works, or linux emulation and firefox+flash. for parental control there's also the opendns alternative that can block adult sites, though i don't know how good it works. you could also look at this (never tried it, don't know if/how it works): https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1803 http://procon.mozdev.org/ also for the old computer i would recommend xfce or, since you say they only need a few programs, you could go with just Xorg + feh for the background + xfwm or openbox + a light taskbar and a nice dock-bar (wbar or simdock) were you will only put the applications they need to run. if there aren't specific problems with drivers and similar, an upgrade to a newer freebsd version could be advisable for flash :) regards ocean ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Gnome desktop for 5 y/o
On Tue, 08 Dec 2009 20:24:36 +0100, ocean ocean_i...@yahoo.it wrote: also for the old computer i would recommend xfce or, since you say they only need a few programs, you could go with just Xorg + feh for the background + xfwm or openbox + a light taskbar and a nice dock-bar (wbar or simdock) were you will only put the applications they need to run. An alternative would be IcecWM: Easily configurable menu, good window managing, no bloat. But I can second XFCE, too. Maybe you want to run XFCE 3 which has some look feel of CDE, is easily configurable and very fast. (I use it on a 300 MHz P2 with similar requirements as you mentioned, but without any Flash). There's a nice dock-like application for X which is used by the FreeSBIE live system CD. I've got no FreeSBIE at hand, nor can I remember the application's name, but I think this would be interesting to you, too. -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Gnome desktop for 5 y/o
On Tue, 8 Dec 2009, ocean wrote: On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 8:47 AM, Charles Howse cho...@charter.net wrote: Hi ocean, thanks for the reply. Is there a browser that will work out of the box with flash? Most of the games the 5 y/o uses are flash-based. if you install the right ports on a fbsd 8.0 maybe it could just works (it's being discussed in the freebsd forums: http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=5786 Please, not that horrible thread again. Just do what's in the Handbook (http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/desktop-browsers.html), and Flash 10 works fine with native Firefox on FreeBSD 8. possibilities are firefox+flash for windows under wine which someone says it works, It works well. And the Java plugin works too. The only problem I see with Windows Firefox on Wine is that it takes a double-click to close Firefox windows or tabs. -Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Gnome desktop for 5 y/o
On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 9:18 PM, Warren Block wbl...@wonkity.com wrote: On Tue, 8 Dec 2009, ocean wrote: On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 8:47 AM, Charles Howse cho...@charter.net wrote: Hi ocean, thanks for the reply. Is there a browser that will work out of the box with flash? Most of the games the 5 y/o uses are flash-based. if you install the right ports on a fbsd 8.0 maybe it could just works (it's being discussed in the freebsd forums: http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=5786 Please, not that horrible thread again. Just do what's in the Handbook ( http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/desktop-browsers.html), and Flash 10 works fine with native Firefox on FreeBSD 8. And Flash 9 works on 7.2 too. Have not had any problems with it yet. regards, usleep ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Gnome desktop for 5 y/o
Polytropon wrote: On Tue, 08 Dec 2009 20:24:36 +0100, ocean ocean_i...@yahoo.it wrote: also for the old computer i would recommend xfce or, since you say they only need a few programs, you could go with just Xorg + feh for the background + xfwm or openbox + a light taskbar and a nice dock-bar (wbar or simdock) were you will only put the applications they need to run. An alternative would be IcecWM: Easily configurable menu, good window managing, no bloat. But I can second XFCE, too. Maybe you want to run XFCE 3 which has some look feel of CDE, is easily configurable and very fast. (I use it on a 300 MHz P2 with similar requirements as you mentioned, but without any Flash). There's a nice dock-like application for X which is used by the FreeSBIE live system CD. I've got no FreeSBIE at hand, nor can I remember the application's name, but I think this would be interesting to you, too. Like Poly I too use XFCE 3 on all my FreeBSD desktops. Its light and fast and anyone can learn it quickly. I have Gnome on a Linux HP netbook and it is a lot slower. ~Al Plant - Honolulu, Hawaii - Phone: 808-284-2740 + http://hawaiidakine.com + http://freebsdinfo.org + + http://aloha50.net - Supporting - FreeBSD 7.2 - 8.0 - 9* + email: n...@hdk5.net All that's really worth doing is what we do for others.- Lewis Carrol ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Gnome desktop for 5 y/o
Polytropon wrote: On Tue, 08 Dec 2009 20:24:36 +0100, ocean ocean_i...@yahoo.it wrote: also for the old computer i would recommend xfce or, since you say they only need a few programs, you could go with just Xorg + feh for the background + xfwm or openbox + a light taskbar and a nice dock-bar (wbar or simdock) were you will only put the applications they need to run. An alternative would be IcecWM: Easily configurable menu, good window managing, no bloat. But I can second XFCE, too. Maybe you want to run XFCE 3 which has some look feel of CDE, is easily configurable and very fast. (I use it on a 300 MHz P2 with similar requirements as you mentioned, but without any Flash). There's a nice dock-like application for X which is used by the FreeSBIE live system CD. I've got no FreeSBIE at hand, nor can I remember the application's name, but I think this would be interesting to you, too. icewm is a nice lightweight wm (which I use) but with your hardware you might want to look at http://freebsd-custom.wikidot.com/ it's an xfce4 based installation dvd which includes many precompiled package. There are notes for installing flash. Chris ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Gnome desktop for 5 y/o
On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 2:18 PM, Warren Block wbl...@wonkity.com wrote: On Tue, 8 Dec 2009, ocean wrote: On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 8:47 AM, Charles Howse cho...@charter.net wrote: Hi ocean, thanks for the reply. Is there a browser that will work out of the box with flash? Most of the games the 5 y/o uses are flash-based. if you install the right ports on a fbsd 8.0 maybe it could just works (it's being discussed in the freebsd forums: http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=5786 Please, not that horrible thread again. Just do what's in the Handbook ( http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/desktop-browsers.html), and Flash 10 works fine with native Firefox on FreeBSD 8. possibilities are firefox+flash for windows under wine which someone says it works, It works well. And the Java plugin works too. The only problem I see with Windows Firefox on Wine is that it takes a double-click to close Firefox windows or tabs. My child like flash games too, and I went with a vbox install as flash10 periodically dumps and hangs when running some of the more exotic flash games. I've seen the same thing happen on linux, but not as much on windows. Java plugin works great very stable but lacking some 3d stuff which makes gaming not as appealing(runescape). -- Adam Vande More ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
RE: Gnome desktop for 5 y/o
-Original Message- From: owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org [mailto:owner-freebsd- questi...@freebsd.org] On Behalf Of krad Sent: Tuesday, December 08, 2009 10:24 AM To: Charles Howse Cc: FreeBSD-Questions Subject: Re: Gnome desktop for 5 y/o 2009/12/8 Charles Howse cho...@charter.net -Original Message- From: Adam Vande More [mailto:amvandem...@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, December 08, 2009 8:56 AM To: Charles Howse Cc: FreeBSD-Questions Subject: Re: Gnome desktop for 5 y/o On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 8:47 AM, Charles Howse cho...@charter.net wrote: Hi ocean, thanks for the reply. Is there a browser that will work out of the box with flash? Most of the games the 5 y/o uses are flash-based. Please don't top post, thanks. My apologies to the group, I forgot. :) ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org you probably also want java as well, a lot of those children's game sites use all kind of horrible stuff. I have an older Power Mac that I've decided to use instead. It's all configured and running well, and I don't use it much anymore since I have Windows 7 Ultimate now on the PC. It's already set up with Parental Controls for the grandson, and has everything the daughter will need as well. Thread closed as far as I am concerned. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
