Your friend pulled a sneaky on you. Give it back and get a mini PC or three.

Your laptop budget is more than I spent for my car 😂

You can get a whole lotta hypervisor server for like $500 in off lease enterprise workstation. Keep using your old MacBook to remote in.

There is definitely a learning curve to Linux. Like most things in IT, it’s easy if you know how. Knowing how is the hard part. Bang your head against it long enough, you’ll get it.