the middle schooler: then I installed linux on my [school] chromebook
me: um are you allowed to do that?
middle schooler: I asked our tech teacher and he doesn't know what linux is so I decided yes
I did this back in the day! The tool of choice as the time was crouton, because it came with a keybinding that let us stealthily switch back to the ChromeOS desktop whenever the teacher walked by :)
A "one click" install of Debian (in a VM) that runs alongside your ChomeOS device. It's a great starter tool for those getting used to Linux and even for the Linux Pro it gives you a terminal, which 99% of the time is all I need.
You can use GUI applications as well so GIMP and other tools are available.
My high school got us windows laptops but they had i3s and terrible windows defender configs so I swapped out the ssd, installed some ram (reason later), and installed Linux on it. I also exported the old drive image with windows on it into a VM so I can have all their spyware and stuff on it when necessary (hence the RAM). Before important state tests and whatnot I swap the old drive back so they don't think I'm cheating.