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“Ev'rybody's in despair,
Ev'ry girl and boy
But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here,
Ev'rybody's gonna jump for joy.
Come all without, come all within,
You'll not see nothing like the mighty Quinn.”
Michael and Michelle Hall of Florida liked the song “Quinn The Eskimo” very much, It talks about the Mighty Quinn, who changes despair into joy and chaos into rest, and attracts attention from the animals. They loved it so much because their son’s name was also happened to be Quinn.
“We've sung the song to our son since the day he was born”.
Unfortunately Quinn, was diagnosed with high functioning autism when he was 12 months old. As he grew, they were unable to find a computer program that would cater to his needs. So Michael Hall decided to make a special operating system- and Qumo was born! They were surprised to see that apart from Quinn, his younger sister also took a fancy to Qimo. This inspired them to release it to the general public. Whoever tried it liked it very much and spread it across the world.
Children loved it because it is made for them.
Parents loved it because it is made by parents from parents' points-of-view!
What is Qimo?
Qimo is a desktop operating system designed for kids based on the open source Ubuntu Linux. It comes pre-installed with educational games for children aged 3 and up. The interface is designed to be easy enough even for a 3 year old to use, without having to navigate menus or manage multiple open windows. It will run from a LiveCD, and doesn't require any Installation. It gives you a safe, virus free, child friendly environment on which to let the kids run free. It helps them to get started into the Fascinating world of Linux without realizing it.
Main Sections
GCompris - an extensive collection of visual games with an educational
under-pinning for kids aged from two onwards.
Childsplay – A set of more than 50 games, like Pacman make the child play and indirectly teaches.
Tuxpaint – a paint program with lots of shapes and styles for creative minds.
Tuxmath - learning math through fun, simple addition / subtraction-style games.
Tuxtype - fun penguin games to get kids familiar with the keyboard layout.
EToys - colourfully-animated projects covering modelling, painting and basic scripting.
All the usual Ubuntu system administration tools and accessories are included in the Qimo menu – Firefox, Transmission, Pidgin, Thunderbird, GPaint, Music Player and Movie Player. etc.
Give A Try
The Qimo cd comes with two modes: LiveCD and Install. The first option, which is aptly named “Run Qimo from your computer without installing anything” simplifies the understanding of a LiveCD down to the bare basics. i.e., it's an Operating System that runs from a disk but doesn't mess with your computer.
Get it Today
To try Qimo, download the ISO file from www.qimo4kids.com. Burn the ISO file to a CD-R/CD-RW as a CD Image, not as a regular file. Some CD burning software can do this. If yours doesn't have this option, download a free program from the site itself.
Starting Qimo is so simple! Once the CD is created, put it in the CD drive and boot the machine or follow the instructions. Always select "Trying it from the CD" Do not try to install it if you are not familiar with Linux. It may delete all the data from your hard disk.
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