I have a degree in CS... actually spent some time implementing email protocol as part of a class to send test messages through I think websockets in Java or something. It was really interesting and kind of a cool project.
Yeah, I ain't touching that shit. I'll more than happily let my domain name provider manage that for me so I can focus on ~~bigger and better things~~ going through yet another Civilization 5 Vox Populi campaign.
From my experience with Linux - your hardware will almost certainly work just fine without a problem.
It'll be your Windows software that you're going to have potential problems with. This is likely way less hassle than it was 10-20 years ago - wine has been continuously improved, DirectX 12 was open sourced, and a lot of software is run in web browsers these days anwyay, but depending what you're trying to do, it can still be a challenge.