You misunderstand—My kid doesn’t program. He plays music. He is not technical.
I do understand. He’s a bright kid who understands how things organize into working solutions. High musical skill is closely correlated with competence in computing. I bet he’s good at puzzles too. He has exactly the kind of mind which, given whatever time he needs, can manage with Linux.
And that’s just it: given time and inclination, one can make Linux work. That vs OS X, which just works. Or vs Windows, the result of billions of dollars and decades of effort to make it work in ways nobody would volunteer to but it must.