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DIY - Laptop for Kids
by: Janean Wilson
If you have a child that is eager to play computer and don't want your good computer messed up, you can set up an old laptop or desktop for them to use.
This is the simplest way to set up a laptop or desktop for kids.
The goal here is to make a computer work, without using a hard drive. A hard drive can crash very easily in a laptop, especially with a child toting it around. I know, I have crashed a few myself.
If your computer has a floppy disk drive, there are only a few options available for an operating system. My favorite is called Kolibri, it has a user-friendly interface. Point and click, simple for a child to locate the installed games and play.
To use Kolibri OS, you will need a computer with an floppy disk drive. It does not matter if it has a working hard drive or not. You will want to remove the hard drive for this project and I also recommend having at least 32 megabytes of memory.
You will need to create a boot disk. I have found one the will load completely from a single floppy disk. You can search the internet for one or you can use the one I have below.
If your old computer has a floppy drive and you can not get it to boot from a floppy disk. You will need change the boot sequence in the BIOS. A computer usually boots from a hard drive, but it can also boot from a disk or a CD-ROM.
When you first turn on your computer, it will tell you what button you need to press to enter the setup. Most computers use F1 or F2.
The floppy drive is always refers to as A: drive. You want A: to be the first choice in the boot sequence.
Insert the disk and give it a test. The computer should boot from disk and load the games and programs into memory.
I have tested and used this operating system on Dell Latitude CPi's, old IBM Thinkpads and Panasonic Toughbooks.
You can customize it, by adding you own desktop background image. My son likes Hot Wheel cars, so I made his using Hot Wheels wallpaper.
If you child has trouble using the touch mouse pad on your laptop, you should be able to connect a wired PS/2 mouse.
If the computer you want to use for this has only a CD-ROM, that's fine. You will need to boot from a cd called a LiveCD. There a many LiveCD's to choose from on the Internet. My favorite is DSL (Damn Small Linux) and my son likes Puppy Linux, because of the cute puppy.
Booting from a cd will require more memory. DSL and Puppy only require 64 megabytes, but more is always better.
So, dig that old computer out of the closet and put it to use. This is a great way to recycle your old laptop.
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