Have Questions?

This looks really good. I'd actually just downloaded the Xubuntu iso to put on my old PC for my boys. This fits the bill nicely. Downloading now. Cheers.

This looks like a great program for the kids. Now if only I could figure out how to use a USB key to install it on the laptop that has no CD drive...

You should be able to follow the instruction for creating a USB install for Ubuntu, since that is really all Qimo is under the graphics.

This looks great! I've got an old laptop that I'll try this on for my 6 year old daughter. Hopefully the proc will be up to the task.

Hi very good project!

I miss something in the info about Qimo. I didn't find list of the games in Qimo.

Hi, what is the password when installing?

OO,
There is no password when running off the CD. If you're prompted for one, just press Enter. You won't be able to install from the Qimo desktop, you'll have to log out and back in as the Live Session User.

Hi! Nice work! I have a 7 year old daughter and I'll try Qimo!
Some technical questions:
- What release of Ubuntu is Qimo based on?
- What about the release cycle? Do you think to release a new Qimo every 6 months?
- How do I get updates and bug fixes? Is it possible to get updates from Ubuntu standard repositories?

Thanks! Dario

Dario,
Qimo 1.0 is based on Ubuntu 8.10. We plan on following a 6 month release cycle like Ubuntu, with Qimo 2.0 being based on Ubuntu 9.04. Qimo still uses Ubuntu's repositories for everything, so you will still get update from them. We will hopefully have a PPA or something setup for Qimo's specific additions by version 2.

Hello!

Thanks so much for Qimo. My 3.5yo loves it, and has been using it trouble free for about a month.

I've encountered a wrinkle, though -- somehow she managed to make all the desktop icons (the launcher bar thing on the bottom and the menu at the top) disappear. Now we just have the eskimo smiling out at us from a blank desktop. Is there a quick fix for this?


Best,
Brendan

The <a href="ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php forums</a> had the solution:
<blockquote>Well, you could try ALT+F2 and the punch in "xfce4-panel". That, I think, should get the panel, together with the menu, back again. It doesn't really solve the problem, it just restart the application BUT you could try to go to the menu and under "Settings -> Sessions and Startup" chose "automatically save sessions on logout".</blockquote>

Brendan,
Glad you were able to find a solution, we'll definitely try and find a way to prevent kids from accidentally deleting the panels.

seems when i install Qiomo I only get Ubuntu,by the way a very good program just wonderful,thanks !!

zjan,
When you installed, did you select the autologin option for the new account you created? If so, that's the problem. You'll need to change it to autologin to the user account "qimo". You can do this from the System menu.

Hi, i tried to run qimo live form the cd, but as it started to load itslf, after few moments it exited to BusyBox, and left me with nothing but a console ;/ tried to run in safegraphics mode, but the result is the same... any ideas?

sw22,
If your hardware is up to spec, I'd suspect the CD might be bad. Did you burn it at the lowest possible speed?

My girls really like it but I have a couple of questions:

1] I'm trying to install the hardware driver for my ATI card but it keeps telling me the packages are broken

2] How do I log in as admin? I tried typing the password I gave at installation time, but it doesn't work

3] How do I log in as my user in order to more easily do some of this admin stuff?

Jonathan,
Where are you getting the ATI drivers from? The ones available in the repository should be good. Though the open source ATI drivers are pretty good, unless you have a newer card you're probably better of with those.

You'll have to log out of the kid's desktop and back in as the user account you created when you installed. You can't perform any administrative tasks from the kid's account.

You can log out from the Q Menu at the top of the screen. Select "Log Out" and it will take you to the login screen, you'll only have a short amount of time to select your user account and enter the password before it will automatically log back in at the kid's account.

Well, it didn't have a "Logout" in the menu - there's a "Quit" item, which brings you to the Shutdown/Logout/Switch User dialog. Doh.

Couple of suggestions:

1] Pre-install Flash support. That's about all my kids want to do these days is play on Flash web sites

2] Add user forums here, so we can talk about Qimo in other places than the blog comments!

Jonathan,
Unfortunately Adobe's licensing terms for Flash don't allow us to distribute it as a part of Qimo. You will need to install it yourself after you have installed Qimo. Fortunately, this is easy enough to do, simply search for "Flash Plugin" in the Add/Remove dialog, check the box next to "Macromedia Flash Plugin", then press the "Apply Changes" button.

Forums will be coming in the future, though they may require that we move the site off it's current CMS and onto something like Drupal.

How can I enable the qimo repository on an existing system, or are there standalone packages I can install?

Now that 9.04 is released, is it safe to upgrade to that via the update manager?

John,
I haven't tried it yet, but since all the packages in Qimo came from Ubuntu's repositories, it should be fine.

The menu system disappeared on ours too -- both the computer I had just built and was testing for my nephew and the one that I made for my children a few weeks before. I don't think it was something the children did because it disappeared as firefox closed when my husband was teaching our 6 year old about email.

What fixed it, for me at least. Go to the quit menu. Switch users to the admin account (the one with the password) and open a terminal window with that userid.

At the prompt type: ls ~/.cache/sessions
It brings back two sessions. I then did:
rm ~/.cache/sessions
(I suppose you could probably just do that one.) Anyway. When I rebooted after that the menus came back. Now that I know, I need to go fix it on the other computer -- and probably turn off the one I'm making for my nephew so it can't get broken again between now and then. I want to learn how to edit the dock and add firefox to it first though.

hi, first, congratulations, awesome proyect!; I can install Quimo on a imac g3(with requeriments aproved) or PPC plataform? thnx.

figue,
We don't have a PowerPC port yet, but it is something we plan of doing when we can.

Hy
and what about Parental control ?
real problem is not it?
thanks

Pascal,
We are evaluating parental controls for version 2 of Qimo.

This is a wonderful opportunity to introduce my five year old to computers and the world of Linux. I'm installing it right now on an old Toshiba laptop we had lying around. Thank you!

Looks great, only question I have is how do i get the Qimo look for the other users. I need 3 seperate logins but want them all to have the Qimo look.

Marc,
There's no straight forward way to do that right now. You would need to create the new user, then copy everything from /home/qimo into the new user's home folder, and chown to the new user.

Hi. Qimo looks great and a fun way to introduce my kids to computers.

I run Vista on my gaming rig and have a Mac for work, but I don't have a dedicated computer that I could use for Qimo. Do you know how easy it is to dual-boot? Can you use something like Wubi or Paralells?

Dan,
You can use Wubi or Paralells, or just run it from the LiveCD if you want.

Hi guys

I just want to say thanks, this software is really good!! ..

I just have a question?? the screen size can be changed???.. I'm having problems visualizing some programs with the actual sreen resolution ( i think 800x600?).. is there a way to change it?

Regards

Hi... great concept and look with Qimo.

I install Qimo and then update it to 9.04. I add an administrator account and want to add three accounts for three children. I add the children's accounts to the Qimo group. The kids accounts end up looking like the basic xubuntu interface. I'm messing with the profiles and suddenly an account "mhall" shows up as I'm adjusting user rights. I'm also a bit surprised that after the upgrade to 9.04 I can't see a "qimo" user during the graphical login. I can log in with the account but it's not visible. I go to add the account and I can't... it's there; but not visible to the boot splash screen.

I can't remember how to clone user profiles... but that's a linux issue and not specifically a Qimo issue. Great distro concept and I'd like to see it grow in several directions. Though I have issues with Ubuntu as the base. That is also a linux thing.

Thanks for all your efforts I'm going to try to force feed this on myself and then my kids.

Amazingly cool distro. Did the upgrades as well. Like Keith above, I would like to clone the Qimo user so I can have one per kid. Can't find Qimo in the profiles. How do I do that?

Keep up the great work!

Hi all! I need some help. So I burnt the CD as an ISO imamge blah blah and it will boot to the QIMO screen that says Try Qimo, Install, Check CD for defects, Test Memory, and Boot from First Hard Disk. My problem is that when I select Try Qimo or anything OTHER that Boot from first hard disk, I press enter and it does not responnd. However, if I press enter on Boot from first hard drive it takes me back to the windows screen. Why wont it accept enter???

Regarding the issue of the disappearing panel, I get that too, and it's repeatable every time: boot Qimo, start Tuxpaint by clicking on the panel and play with it, quit and don't save. Back at the desktop, panel and menu are gone. Boom, every time. I haven't investigated further so I don't know if there is any workaround.

Also, for me, trying the upgrade to 9.04 failed completely and rendered the system unbootable. Note that I tried this from a completely new system so I had not let Qimo be updated with any of the Ubuntu patches for 8.10, that might have affected the process. Now I just run with all 8.10 patches applied.

Another possibly pertinent factor is that I have so far only tried Qimo in a virtual machine (Virtualbox on Windows XP). There are some functional issues with that, but it seems to be Virtualbox-related so I won't bring it up here

Congratulations for the idea, hopefully before we can enjoy 6 months of version 2.
I have installed but not operating correctly qimo there are some applications that produce error in the frequency of the monitor (LG Flatron), reading the blog and use ALT-F1 can access the application, but not the way I need to operate.
Is there any solution for this problem?

Thanks

I am with Heather up above. I have confirmed that my old Dell meets hardware requirements and is running ok when booted from Windows -- its CD drive is functioning properly -- I have downloaded Qimo .iso twice and burned it to three cds using ISO recorder -- After boot from CD, the main Qimo screen appears but none of the options work. They all time out after many minutes of drive action. Sometimes I get a DOS-like screen with four driver install items checked - but then nothing. Halp!

I finally got a computer together and installed Qimo 1.0, and it's great! Exactly what I've been looking for (I even suggested something like this on Brainstorm but got shotdown :-(

Unfortunately, the suspend function didn't work properly with my PC Chips M811 motherboard. So I tried running the 9.04 upgrade but it failed spectacularly. Maybe I should have answered "Replace" for the GDM config files instead of "Keep"?

When do you anticipate releasing Qimo 2.0?

Also, do you have any 'in' with the various projects whose software you're including? It would be nice if they all had a more similar interface. Also, some of the programs are more usable than others, for little kids at least. For instance, it would be nice if the programs immediately opened-up to a usable screen (rather than a start or config screen). It would also be nice if they all had a red EXIT button. For instance, Tux Paint is a GREAT program but my 3 year-old can never remember how to close it.

ciao, vorrei informazioni su come installare qimo su netbook asus eeepc 701 senza cd drive. si può avviare da usb o sd e come si fa? grazie mille

hallo, I would want information on as to install qimo on netbook asus eeepc 701 without cd drive. can I be started by usb or sd and as he does? thanks

daniele,
You can use the same instructions for putting Ubuntu on the eeepc.

Greetings. Really cool flavor of Linux! And the kids are going to love it too! Just wondering though. When installing I entered in a username and password and left the auto login box unchecked. And how that I'm in Qimo I would like to do administrative things or SU things. Any idea what the password would be by chance? Or could you tell me where I go to set the password up? I have typed in every word or phrase I can think of that would be the password and still no go. Thanks.

Amazingly cool distro. Did the upgrades as well. Like Keith above, I would like to clone the Qimo user so I can have one per kid. Can't find Qimo in the profiles. How do I do that?

emo hair

There isn't a way to create new Qimo profile users at the moment. You'll need to create the new user and then copy the all the files from /home/qimo to /home/{new user name}

Hi,
I agree totally with Tony. My 4 yr old son also has the same problem exiting any program. As a result he keeps all the programs running at the same time and doesn't know or remember how to close them. The desktop becomes a mess and strange mixed sounds from all of them (the ones which have sound).
There should be a good icon or indication (or warning may be) so that the kids know how and when to close them. I know this is not an issue of Qimo but if thought over and included, it would be really nice and easy for the kids.

Addendum (brainstorming):
to prevent kids from running several software at the same time, if an animated character could come up and warn the kid user and/or give an option to close the previous running program manually or automatically (with Linux scripts in the background), would be really nice and helpful.

we're looking into way to prevent kids from running more than one game at a time. The easiest would be to just prevent running a second game while another is already running. I'm concerned that some of the youngest kids might not understand the options if we ask them if they want to close the previous program.

I know this has been mentioned before, but it would be great if there was a Qimo version that would work on G3 iMacs. I help with a nonprofit that refurbishes computers and gives them to people who can't afford one, and sometimes we get those cute iMacs.
We use Qimo on some of the pc's we refurbish, and it seems like Qimo would be an ideal choice for iMacs!
Maybe CruxPPC would be a good basis for a MacQimo?

Paul,
We don't have a PowerPC build of Qimo yet, but somebody has been working on getting it running on G3s here: https://answers.launchpad.net/qimo/+question/81461

You can probably ask him for help or directions for getting it setup.

hi want to to a great big thankyou. its about time someone helped both parents (installing programmes etc) and the little ones to learn. great programme and id recommend all day everyday.

i recently installed and then went into admin and it showed there was a big update so i updated it and now have lost qimo unless i go through the main desktop. was i wrong in doing the install? im about to reinstall so it boots to qimo BUT in future do i not do any updates and by not doing the updates does that make the laptop and my child vunroble to spam/scams and viruses?
again a great big thanks i will be supporting throughout

I can not find any Shutdown Button,
how can I power down the System?

Wolfgang,

At the bottom of the "Q Menu" button in the top-left corner, there should be an entry for shutdown, or log out, or something like that. It will bring up a windows asking what you want to do (Shutdown, restart, suspend, etc).

Hi, works great from the cd I burned, but it automatically loads from cd and won't let me choose to install. Arrow keys don't work on boot page, it just waits 10-15 seconds and loads from the cd. Any idea?

Still no .deb? What gives?

Hi very good project!

I miss something in the info about Qimo. I didn't find list of the games in Qimo.

Hey, I still have confusion on how to pronounce Qimo? Is there any site where I can hear sounds and learn

whats edubuntu?
thanx

Edubuntu is another version of Linux, also derived from Ubuntu. It contains many of the same games as Qimo, but it designed to be run in school classrooms and computer labs, as such it has more network management tools than Qimo, and requires more setup.

How about joining the Debian Jr. project?

It doesn't look like the Debain Jr. project is still active, but I will try and get in touch with them.

Just read the FAQ and it explained alot. Thanks.

Does Qimo have chinese language version?

I'm not sure how many of the Qimo packages have Chinese translations, but you can try installing under your language of choice and see for yourself. I know there are additional language packs available for download on the internet, if the initial install doesn't have enough.

Great work! I am fairly new to Linux, I tried the live CD and my kids loved it. I installed it dual-boot with the existing XP system and things went well. I disabled the automatic login and put a pw on the Qimo account so my 3 year old doesn't spend every free moment booting up the pc. What are your thoughts regarding parental controls in future releases? I put the Glubble addon in Firefox which does a nice job controlling web access for little ones.

Just wanted to drop a line with some positive feedback.

I love Ubuntu and have it running dual-boot on several of my PCs. This will be great for my kids PC hooked up to the big tv.