apt is prone to catastrophic failure that's very hard to diagnose but setting up an IDE is as simple as clicking OK on a few prompts in an installer. For some real data nobody in the high school class I took that used visual studio had any issue with the fact it was visual studio.

Really though, thinking on it the best environment for a total beginner is probably one of those web-based things like codeacademy.

I don't want to start a huge argument or anything but it's years since apt has failed for me, and I run a bunch of systems. IDEs have a learning curve over and above learning the language, and really, locating and installing an IDE is easier than typing apt-get install <language>?

Let's agree to disagree.