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.
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.
I for one, will most definitely not be doing this. Reddit was such a vital part of the internet during the mid-2010's to early 2020's... it would be a shame it all that history was permanently lost.
I will, however, likely not be going back. I've actually really wanted to take part in a decentralized social community like this for a long time, and I am very excited about what the federation brings to the table, and about the role that Lemmy fills in that network. In a world where the internet seems so much to focus on what is currently going on now, I reckon not contributing to Reddit anymore will have a much greater long-term impact than nuking my previous content, and will allow me to leave my piece of internet history intact on their archive.
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.