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.