[ssivark]

On a tangent -- You might want to look into Guix (at least just the package manager, if not the whole system/distribution); it seems quite popular for similar use cases. See, eg: https://hpc.guix.info/about/

Also, with regards to linux, what stops you from making that the default that students onboard to? I would imagine that something like this becomes quite easy if you have a culture where group members help onboard the new ones into the ways of doing things.

[davrosthedalek]

They typically have one laptop, and a) they are not happy if I tell them that they need to switch to linux (and no word, less games...) b) it's often cheaper laptops with questionable linux support.

It's not like we can buy them a work laptop. At least not for each undergrad.