Recently started my little homelab. The hardware consists of:
Comcast modem in bridge mode (I use this because it means unlimited data is $10 instead of $30)
TP-Link TL-SG116E - cheap 16 port managed switch I bought off ebay
Dell Wyse 5070 extended with an Intel T350 4-port NIC running on opnsense
Belkin RT3200 running openwrt running as an access point
Have already messed around with setting up opnsense (Adguard Home, Zerotier), and going to keep playing with it. I've thought about installing proxmox on the mini PC, connecting an external USB hard drive, and running it as a server and router, but that seems a little jank. Planning on getting some more parts to throw together a small server. You can't really see it in the picture but the cables are still a little messy.
I had a great time. I studied electrical engineering and my department had moved from using Matlab to Python which made my life a lot easier. There was one class where we had to use a Matlab library but I was able to use Octave with the library. There weren't any other programs we had to install there weren't compatible with Linux. A lot of classes just required a web browser, no additional software, so no issues there.