Last Friday night, I had the good fortune to meet and spend a few minutes talking with Steve “the Woz” Wozniak, co-founder of Apple and co-developer of the first successful personal computers. The Woz was in Detroit for a public interview at Macomb Community College, before which several of us associated with the college had a chance to meet him.

While there is no reason to reiterate any of the public details of the life of the Woz (including his surprising appearance in 2009 on Dancing with the Stars), he said a few things I thought were worth noting and might not be as well known.

Steve Wozniak’s education in electronics was rather unconventional. He pointed out that, unlike his other school subjects in which he was merely required to memorize information for a test, his father taught him electronics in a way that allowed him to fully understand the information. Instead of just giving him a definition for “capacitor,” his father took him back to the very basics of electrons and energy and how these related to a capacitor, and how a capacitor related to other electronics concepts. Not only would young Steve feel that he fully understood what his father had taught him, but he was then able to actually go and do something with his knowledge. He stated that it was through this style of teaching and learning that allowed him to begin creating electronics projects at a very young age, and to eventually go on to create the computers that have indelibly left their mark on technology as we know it.

We got to talking about music, and he expressed an interest in my own musical training and background. He mentioned that certain key people in Apple’s formative stages had musical training, and that his own brother had gone from music to the computer hardware business. It has been pointed out many times over my years in this business that there are parallels between reading/composing/performing music and working through the logic and architecture of software applications and writing code.

There was another point that was clearly important to Steve Wozniak to which he attributed personal success. He emphasized that he had never gotten caught up in the prevalent drug culture of the ‘60s and early ‘70s and so stayed focused on his personal goals. He brought this up three times during a one-hour interview, so obviously he strongly believed in his “no drugs lifestyle.” Well worth noting in our current culture.

It was very clear that Mr. Wozniak is a highly productive individual. We often hear about innovation and creativity as key points in new business development, and the importance of “new ideas.” No doubt the Woz has innovative spirit to spare, but I am sure his success had as much to do with his ability to get things done as it did with his creative abilities. His continual productivity was vital in his success.

I know that many of you developers out there have school-aged children. And as developers, more than likely you have spare computers lying around as well. So why not take advantage of some of the Linux distributions out there that are specifically geared toward children. Three major benefits that I see for this are:

• Child-oriented Linux distros tend to have a simplified interface with large, chunky, colorful icons and a specialized set of programs designed with kids in mind.

• In addition to the kid-friendly interface, there is a fair amount of game and edutainment software which either comes with the distribution or is available for download.

• Kids explore and mess things up. With his/her own Linux box, it’s no big deal.

Here are a few of the kid-geared distributions that I am aware of:

Sugar is the operating system designed for the One Laptop Per Child project. This OS is a radical departure from traditional desktops and has a strong emphasis on teaching programming skills.

Edubuntu is based on the popular Ubuntu distribution. Designed to be easy to install and very Windows-like in its operation, Edubuntu is a good choice for newer equipment that can handle its rich graphics.

LinuxKidX uses a KDE-based desktop highly customized for children, and is based on the Slackware distro.

Foresight for Kids is based on Foresight Linux, a distro distinguished by the use of the Conary package manager.

Qimo is another system based on Ubuntu, but designed to be used by a single home user instead of in classroom instruction. The system requirements are fairly low, since it’s designed to be run on donated equipment which Qimo’s parent organization, QuinnCo, distributes to needy kids.

Below is a compilation of Linux software available for kids (courtesy of Dustin M. Wax at Stepcase Lifehack).

GCompris, a set of over 100 educational games intended to teach everything from basic computer use to reading, art history, telling time, and vector drawing.

Childsplay is another collection of games, with an emphasis on memory skills.

TuxPaint, an amazing drawing program filled with fun sound effects and neat effects.

EToys is a scripting environment, more or less. The idea is that kids solve problems by breaking them down into pieces, scripting them, and running their scripts – the same way programmers do. But the goal doesn’t seem to be to teach programming but rather to provide an immersive learning environment in which kids learn foundational thinking skills.

SuperTux and Secret Maryo are Super Mario clones.

TomBoy, a wiki-like note-taking program.

TuxTyping, a typing game intended to help develop basic typing skills.

Kalzium is a guide to the periodic table and a database of information about chemistry and the elements. Great for older students.

Atomix, a cool little game where kids build molecules out of atoms.

Tux of Math Command is an arcade game that helps develop math skills.

If anyone is already using any of these distributions with their kids, I’d love to hear your feedback.