I think Linux (Ubuntu or Mint) would be great, so students can help build what the big corps are trying to crush and the fact that it really is an outstanding p

I think Linux (Ubuntu or Mint) would be great, so students can help build what the big corps are trying to crush and the fact that it really is an outstanding platform to learn from. I wish people would see how these proprietary boxes are not only crap but undermine the open-source community. The comment "I really don't want to deal with OS upgrades...", does not make sense, as I would think a student (at least when I was one) we wanted to upgrade our OS and for free made it even better. You can also customize a Linux REALLY easy, and that is something as a student I was looking for. So low cost and great power is what at least a tech student would be looking for.