Interesting - far more Linux representation than I would have expected. I'm actually in the throes of potentially revisiting my primary OS direction. Or, maybe just trying to decide whether the new MacBook Pros are viable as a 'one machine' solution.
I'm also an old CompSci guy, and started on Linux way back in college in the 90's running it on a 386 machine. Had my first active xover running on Linux w/ BruteFIR and M-Audio Delta soundcards some time before Y2k (eventually on a 1GHz Athlon!! holy mflops, Batman). Moved away from it as my desktop OS though during the 'growing pains' era when maintaining the OS became a full time job due to the dependency hell that more or less eventually led to Docker.
I've had a Proxmox server running in the house for most of the last while, but recently finally decided to take a shot at GPU pass-through with my new build and it actually worked quite easily. So, now I have a Ryzen 3700x w/ 64GB running a variety of services in LXC containers and VMs but also a VM with a GPU attached to serve as a desktop. Taking a shot at trying Linux as the desktop, but sadly haven't had much time to really thoroughly evaluate things like Darktable, FreeCad, Resolve etc.
I'll likely always have a windows laptop unless it gets replaced by a MacBook; at the moment the 'killer app' is Vectric V-Carve which is windows-only, but it's possible FreeCad might be able to replace it.