I disagree. I've had some experience with middle schoolers and scratch, as well as my 10yr old. FWIW, my school district has access to iPads, Windows desktops,

I disagree. I've had some experience with middle schoolers and scratch, as well as my 10yr old. FWIW, my school district has access to iPads, Windows desktops, and chromebooks in varying quantities and frequencies through the grade levels. Once the middle schoolers were in the scratch shell, it's all about scratch. (Well, that and browsing the scratch repos for interesting projects). Would work just as well on linux as windows. Progressing to python with this group didn't work as well on windows as it would have on linux, because the terminals were infuriating for both the teacher and the students. (Also, there would have been a ton less issues getting stuff installed). My 10 yr old started seriously using a shared ubuntu desktop @ 8 did some scratch, then at 9.5 started on python, and now arduino. He's just fine with the terminal, for what little he needs to actually do with it.