Linux

best thing to include a few screenshots of how easy linux mint is to use and navigate today.

Makes no sense. If you ban windows it makes it harder to snipe a school shooter. /s

I don't know how much IT experience you have, but at the end of the day when an organization pays for license, they're paying for a fall-guy. They want to have someone to go to when there's a problem with the software, because that's cheaper than everyone needing to hire an expert at whatever issues pop up to be certain it's solved.

They don't want to have a bunch of PCs running whatever distro and domain software the last IT guy felt like going with. And when the next heartbleed/shell shock/spectre happens, they don't want to have to figure out how to get the fix for the flavors of software they went with. They want to be able to say "hey company, this is what we pay you for" and the company to say "all good, we got you".

Of course, it is possible to have both open software, and corporate support. This is why redhat exists. Just understand that your IT dept may have a preference based purely on how easy/hard it makes their job. When my PC has some bug or hw incompatibility, I'm willing to take the time to solve it. But someone who doesn't have that time is going to prefer to just tell the company that made it to solve it.

I'm also on-board with no computers in schools, as someone else brought up. Phones should not be allowed in classrooms. Before we had LLMs running on calculators, my idea was to have a series of optional classes where you build your own calculator starting from logic gates, and that's the only computer you're allowed to use.

I thought you meant banning actual windows. Once I figured out it made a lot more sense, and I agree completely.

Agree, a 100% free distro should be the default in schools. And free programs. No proprietary app should exist on computers.

I thought the Enterprise and LTSC versions didn't have all that?

You should be worried about some other things happening in Poland.

"banning" it will just make it "the cool forbidden thing"

As long as 90% of businesses use it on their desktop it makes sense to teach. Using windows and the common software (photoshop, excel etc.) on it is basically a life skill at this point in time.

I agree with your premise though.

I guess it could be argued the computer proficiency skill is transferable (from Linux at school to Windows at work) as long as there is a significant overlap in the available software, desktop presentation, workflow and control conventions.

One example where it for sure doesn't work is gimp to photoshop. If you wanna know why, go dig out instructions for how to draw a circle in each one. Or try recreating one of the many effects from PS in GEGL. - The workflow is so fundamentally different that if you know one software, it will actually hinder you learning the other, because your intuition will mislead you and you'll be constantly frustrated (which actively hinders learning. There are studies on that)