mgd
based on the great post by @dlakelan about #chromebooks, I’d love to hear how you administer laptops for others, especially children. The easy option is to just get a chromebook and have total control but I’d love to start them on Linux early
Mar 17 at 9:42amWeb
Show threadDaniel LakelandMar 17

@mgd
So, my kids only got a laptop recently, theyre almost 15 and almost 16. But they had a desktop machine starting at about 5yo. The desktop machine was in our office where we could supervise their access, rather than having them run off with a laptop to their rooms and do whatever. I used a mini PC celeron machine initially, and then upgraded in 2020 to an HP Omen desktop.

#linux #technology #parenting #kids

Show threadDaniel LakelandMar 17
@mgd
When it comes to their desktop I run straight Debian with Gnome, and I have it administered by cfengine3 so that there is a policy server on my network and I can configure packages and config files by pushing policy to the policy server. initially it was a raspberry Pi 4 but now its a small VM on my proxmox machine. The home directory is mounted from an NFSv4 mount on a NAS (also now a VM on my proxmox cluster of mini PCs) this let's me back up everything in one place.
Show threadDaniel LakelandMar 17
@mgd
The home network firewall has no outbound port 80 or 443 connections, so to access the web each machine must have an explicitly configured proxy. The squid proxy runs on my router and filters access based on DNS name (it doesn't hack https with its own certificates). This lets me filter access to right wing nutjobs like Breitbart and similar stuff as well as allow access to some sites only during "gaming time". For a long time we had a quota for YouTube which was implemented...
Show threadDaniel LakelandMar 17

@mgd
by marking YouTube packets in the proxy and then having a quota in the firewall for marked packets going to each kids machine... a certain number of megabytes per day.

Now that they have laptops, and are older in high school ive given them Guix on the laptops and they can install packages as users, rollback if they screw something up, and are learning to write config files for the OS (guix uses a single scheme file as a declarative setup). They also have sudo access on the laptop.

Show threadDaniel LakelandMar 17

@mgd
The key to all of this is like any good parenting you start with a lot of guardrails and you loosen the guardrails as they get older and more mature. You also give them help figuring out things when they want or need it.

of course they want to play games! so I got them Minecraft Java edition, and Steam. I would buy them steam games as gifts and they would accept the gifts and install. Proton has made a LOT of Windows games available on Linux.

Show threadDaniel LakelandMar 17
@mgd
hope that helps and feel free to ask questions!.
Show threadDaniel LakelandMar 17
@mgd
oh yes, also I would use PAM configs to have them only able to login to their desktop machines at certain times... so no sneaking out in the middle of the night and gaming. These days they still have a time quota using timekpr-next which helps them realize how much time theyre spending on the machine, but they frequently will ask for more time and I'll give it to them I want to make sure they dont see it as me imposing strict requirements on their behavior rather as me helping them manage
Show threadDaniel LakelandMar 17
@mgd
the use of a potentially addictive but also useful and important tool. we have discussed the addictive nature of games and computers right from the start, and talked about taking breaks and doing things other than gaming as a healthy way to use their time as early as 5yo.
Show threadmgdMar 17
@dlakelan Thank you for your insight. This is really helpful.