In terms of hardware, what are some good cost effective resources and what what things might I want to consider differently than what I am used to in both the Mac and Windows worlds? I need smart home management, a plex hub, and photo editing, as well as the usual other stuff.
EDIT: I use Capture One for photo organizing and editing. I have old computers I can repurpose for this endeavor, but they are pretty old. My main thought for this post was looking into what kind of hardware I could consider for building a new Linux system from scratch. I am very much am inclined to switch to Home Assistant,because Siri is dumb as a bag of rocks, and AppleHome does not have the features I want and is extremely buggy. Everything I have currently is in the Apple ecosystem, and my daily driver is an M2 Mac Mini. I am not inclined to put Linux on the Mac Mini at this stage. I use the complete Proton suite for all that stuff. Thanks!
Just try it out for a bit, look for alternatives to the software you use on linux, or linux versions of that software, and as a last ditch effort try and see if it'll run in WINE.
I’m still interested in trying this out, I just don’t have the bandwidth right now. I just want something that works - without me having to do a lot of work. At least for now. I got my iPad air swapped out at the Genius Bar, and I upgraded my iPhone. I was definitely having some hardware issues. And I couldn’t take advantage of AppleAI with my iPhone 13. I just wish Apple home could give me cool lighting scenes to choose from, or at the very least import them from Hue or Aidot. As it is I have two lighting systems that kinda play well together, but really I generally have to set each individually if I am syncing to a movie, or turning on some nifty color schemes.