3. Introduction to Tux Paint

Tux Paint is a free drawing program designed for kids aged from \(3\) to \(12\) years. It is a simple program, easy-to-use interface, have fun sound effects, and an encouraging cartoon mascot that guides children as they use the program.

Students are provided with a blank canvas and a variety of drawing tools to help them be creative.

 

Tux Paint runs on various platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, Haiku, and more.

 

How Much does it cost?
Tux Paint is one of the free, Open Source software distributed under the terms of the GNU (General Public License). It is used in schools around the world as a computer literacy drawing activity. We can work on this software and share those works with others.

We can use Tux Paint (and other open-source software) in schools because it is free of cost and not limited.

 

Objectives:
1. Easy and Fun:
Tux Paint is a simple drawing program for young children. It is not developed as a general-purpose drawing tool, and the main objective is to be fun and easy to use. Sound effects and a cartoon character helps the user to understand what is going on and keeps them entertained. Extra-large cartoon-style mouse pointer shapes are also available.

 

2. Extensibility:
Tux Paint application is designed in a way that allows the addition of new capabilities and functionalities. Brushes and rubber stamp shapes can be dropped in and pulled out.

 

Example: Teachers can share a collection of animal and plant shapes and ask their students to draw an ecosystem. Each shape has its own sound and textual facts. When the child selects the shape, the corresponding sound and the text will be played and displayed, respectively.

 

3. Portability:
Tux Paint is one of the portable applications among various computer platforms. We can install it in various operating systems such as Windows, Android, Linux, etc. The interface seems to be the same among them all. It is designed to run better on slow and older systems.

 

4. Simplicity:
When the program quits, the current image reappears when it is restarted. There is no need to create filenames or to use the keyboard to save images. A collection of thumbnails is available to open an image, and it is done by selecting the thumbnails. It is restricted to access the other files on the computer.