I took a bunch of stuff from work that was gonna get recycled including a decent laptop and a flash drive. I work in network admin and IT if that narrows it down. Never used Linux before though.
Edit: Thanks everyone! I'm down for some problem solving so I think I'm gonna go the Arch/Manjaro direction so I can learn my way around Linux generally.
It’s worth noting that because you’re coming from a background of understanding and operating computers you don’t need to be as worried about the most detailed support wiki or forums.
The skill set of breaking a problem down will let you transcend howtos for your distro.
Once you obtain 'the knack,' there is nothing which can stop you. If there's a will, there's a way.