Funny I was just thinking i'd read all this before so i'll assume it's been reiterated just to set all the fanboys at each others throats, how sad.

Or the Deep Blue Screen of Death

"i wonder if the organization would be there to fix the machines before the next class" this isn't Windows, he won't have to fix it, it will still be working from last time. :)

No I think the Fender Gibson comparison is still fair.You say you "read a huge book and several hundred man pages along the way" to do what may I ask, it wasn't browsing the web, or writing a document or drawing a picture or working on a spreadsheet because it is almost identical to use those programs in Linux as Windows. Now if you are talking about administering computer systems then it would be sensible to read up on them but I doubt if that's what the kids would have been learning. Or what about this analogy, I have a Nissan Prairie it has the indicator lever mounted on the other side to my Ford Fiesta, the Nissan isn't a bad version of the Fiesta or harder to use, its just different.