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.
The good thing about Linux is that it’ll run on just about anything. So you can run it on any old PC you have lying around. Although you should consider power consumption.
There are several photo editing software like Dark table and GIMP.
Linux is a first class citizen for Home Assistant.
Plex works fine. Jellyfin is preferred by most.