I have done this, and in many ways it has been one of the best parenting decisions I've made. My oldest is a better CLI user now than most engineers I work with, and it came almost entirely from him exploring the system and getting excited about all the cool things he can do. It also made it super easy for me to teach him more self-service things, everything from looking at system logs to see why the xbox controller or even the USB keyboard isn't working, to learning how the software stack is assembled.
For my other kids that don't care about that sort of stuff, even they have become very capable computer users. It's been easy for them to learn Windows and ChromeOS at school. I already see the same pattern of diving deeper developing with my youngest too.
One of the most rewarding things I've experienced as a parent is seeing the hacker spirit still very much alive.
Great way to create future technologist or someone who will seamless use powertools to amplify whatever else they choose to do in life.
Still this is the crux of the linux experience and why I still don't main it - having to read logs to understand why an Xbox controller doesn't work.
Or a million other things like this. Sure it keeps getting better, by a lot. But the number of rough edge cases still is an issue every time I try out lonux again after lots of people tell me "Today Linux is different" - they always tell me and I always find, no it's still a thing you will still need to go spelunking in tech wizardry to do things that mostly just works on some other mainstream OS, like macos or even windows.
For example, I have an AMD Radeon 6600 RX. Works great under Windows. Under Linux - and I've tried multiple distros - it's entirely unusable. The screen just flashes. I don't understand.
For my other kids that don't care about that sort of stuff, even they have become very capable computer users. It's been easy for them to learn Windows and ChromeOS at school. I already see the same pattern of diving deeper developing with my youngest too.
One of the most rewarding things I've experienced as a parent is seeing the hacker spirit still very much alive.