Windows 10 with forced updates is too big if a reliability risk, especially when we're under deadline. Even if we could accept the spyware.

MBP could work, but it's very expensive, and the 16GB limit would be painful.

Mac Pro is expensive and somewhat outdated, and also is not portable.

Windows as a guest on Linux may work for us, but I'm still unclear on how that will impact color calibration / transforms.

I wish Adobe would just offer CS for Linux. Even at twice the price it would be our best option.

A workflow of, for example, Rawtherapee + GIMP would be more than enough for basic to upper intermediate tasks to replace Lightroom with. ( No, I'm not talking bs, my wife is actually using this for work; just like Mixxx is usable for professional DJing. ) There is also digiKam, which is rather impressive; it is lacking a few features, yet, but not as many as you'd think.

PS & Lightroom is everywhere, that is what's tought in schools; it's the MS Office of photo & design, and it shouldn't be.

There are, of course, situations, when the all-in-one PS is needed, but it's really, really rare.

Give digiKam and GIMP a go, but give them weeks, not minutes. Most of those who run away are only literally trying them for hours at max while these are utterly different tools.