GCompris, educational free software with a wide range of activities

In the next article we are going to take a look at GCompris. This is a educational free software set For the smallest of the house, which contains a large number of activities. With them he seeks to cover a certain variety of topics, ranging from computer operation, using the mouse and keyboard, general knowledge, reading, writing, foreign languages ​​or algebra. All these topics are framed within activities such as memory and logic games, scientific experiments, etc.

GCompris is a collection of packages that together form a complete suite of activities. Its main purpose is to provide a development platform for educational activities. GCompris is part of the GNU project, under the GPL license.

This suite is a set of quality educational programs that contains a large number of activities for Children between 2 and 10 years. Some of the activities that we can find here are geared towards games, but they are still educational.

GCompris basic requirements

• Processor → Pentium 2 166Mhz.
• Memory (RAM) → 48 MB.
• Operating System → GNU / Linux, BSD, Mac OS or Windows.
• Video → A 3D accelerator card is NOT required.

Categories of activities available with GCompris

This is a list of available activity categories with some examples:

• Discovering the computer: keyboard, mouse, touch screen.
• Reading: letters, words, reading practice, writing text.
• Arithmetic: numbers, operations, enumeration.
• Science: canal lock, the water cycle, renewable energy.
• Geography: countries, regions, culture.
• Games: chess, memory, rank 4, hangman game, tic-tac-toe.
• Others: colors, shapes, Braille alphabet, learning to tell time.

Today, GCompris offers more than 100 activities and as indicated on their website there is more in development. GCompris is free software, so each user will have the possibility to adapt it to their needs, to improve it as they see fit, and most importantly, to share it with children around the world.

Download

The GCompris project is hosted and developed by the KDE community .

For users of free software operating systems, the full version is free. This means that for GNU / Linux systems, the installer provided by its creators and the distributed packages have the full version of this suite. No need for any activation code. Contrary to what happens with its version for Windows. However, its creators encourage users to support the project with a donation, in order to continue developing it.

From their website, they offer independent packages for GNU / Linux systems. These should work fine in any distribution. They require at least linux kernel 3.10 and gstreamer 1.0. For this article I have tested it on Ubuntu 18.10.

In order to start using this software, we will have to select sh file corresponding to the architecture of our system:

Download GCompris 0.91 (64 bit)

Download GCompris 0.91 (32 bit)

Note: As advised in the download page of the project, 64-bit version requires OpenGL. The 32-bit version is using rendering software to be compatible with all computers.

Once the download of the file that suits our computer is finished, to use it we will only have to open a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T). First we will go to the folder where the installer was downloaded, then we will only have to execute these commands (adapting them if you have selected the 32bit architecture):

chmod u+x gcompris-qt-0.91-Linux64.sh

./gcompris-qt-0.91-Linux64.sh

When we execute the second of the commands, we will have to read the license or press q to skip it.

After this, we will answer yes to the questions that will appear in the terminal. With this the software will be installed in a new folder next to the installer.

Finally, para start GCompris, we will have to go to the new folder. Inside it, we will find a subfolder called bin. In it, we will find the file to be executed, which is called gcompris-qt.sh.

If someone needs it, you can find more information about this set of software in the manual offered by its creators in the Project Wiki or in web page.