Or it may not be too much. My whole university year was required to use some unix variant starting with the first semester, where we learned C (so add memory management and pointers arithmetic to things to learn, and I didn't even start with mathematics we were taught at the same time; computer usage was not the only totally new subject for us).

Of course I agree that it's not an insignificant load. Learning how to write programs at all is difficult enough, and what I propose is just adding learning new environment on top of it. On the other hand, a shell server with compilers and editors already installed may be a good start. This way students get stable environment which already works, so they can focus on learning how to use it instead of struggling with administering it.