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Re: [Sheflug] Educational software
On Tue, 2004-03-16 at 13:50, J Simpson V21 wrote:
> As a newbie I have a lot of Windows educational software, but for all the
> things we have my two children keep returning to The Learning Company,
> Reader Rabbit software, they have never taken to the Dorling Kindersley
> stuff. One's on Key stage 1, Year 2 and the other is on Playtime for Baby.
>
> The reason why I love it is they appear to learn quite a lot without trying,
> and no matter how many times she gets the same thing wrong the program never
> loses its temper with her.
>
> I think the only way I could collaborate in developing similiar software in
> Linux, is to lend you the software or write begging letters to Learning
> Company asking them to produce it for Linux.
>
This would be well worth the time taken to write the letter! They
wouldn't be the first company which is at least starting to think about
porting their software to Linux. I'd urge you do send of a quick letter
requesting a Linux version.
You do have a couple of other options for running your Windows apps.
Firstly, you could see if you can get the application to work with wine,
which is an open source project that reimplements the Windows API for X
windows. You're likely to have limited success with this, as many of the
educational apps that I've seen implement their own extensions to the
windows api, which mean wine can't run them. However, it's worth a try;
we could trial them if you could send the software.
Option 2 is to buy Win4Lin and see if you have a licence for Windows 98
lying around. Win4Lin costs about 90 dollars and allows you to run a
complete Windows session in a window on Linux. It works very well and is
one way to move to Linux for most things without having to leave every
application behind.
regards,
Seb James
--
Managing Director, Educational Systems, Hypercube Systems Ltd
Providing Open Source ICT solutions for schools.
Tel: 0845 458 0277 Web: www.hypercubesystems.co.uk
Mob: 07900 958964 Email: seb [at] hypercubesystems.co.uk
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