Linux runs fine on Intel Macs. There are a couple peculiarities you’ll want to be aware of, though.

• Ventoy doesn’t work as an installer. The boot menu will come up, but any ISO you choose will hang
• Not all distros will recognize the wireless card and install the firmware (Be prepared to install it using a USB to Ethernet adapter)
• Same goes for the iSight web cam

Other than those initial hiccups, everything works pretty flawlessly.

I think it’s just a matter of getting used to it. I had the same issue at first and the more I used the command line, the more I started to prefer it to GUI apps for certain tasks.

A couple things that I use all the time:

• tab completion is incredible
• cd - goes back to the last directory you were in (useful for bouncing back and forth between locations)
• !$ means the last argument. So if you ls ~/Downloads and then decide you want to go there, you can cd !$.
• :h removes the last piece of a path. So I can do vim /etc/network/interfaces and then cd !$:h will take me to /etc/network.

This promises to be a fun project!

It sounds to me like you have above-average demands on your network and I’d agree that UniFi (and therefore probably Omada) are not what I’d consider great as routers/firewalls.

I’m a fan of pfSense/OPNSense for that purpose, which you can install on pretty much any x86_64 hardware. They’re both wonderful and you can fine tune to your heart’s content or get them set the way you like and leave them.

If you really like a dedicated router appliance, I do like the Mikrotiks, too, but you’d have to study their sometimes-peculiar way of doing things.

To my tastes, UniFi does great at switching and wireless, but any of you’re unhappy with that direction, I’ve heard good things about Omada and the Aruba stuff is fantastic. I recently have been playing with some used iap-325s from eBay. I picked them up for $25 and they’ve been terrific.