A bit of caution to give you:

I've installed Linux on plenty of "Windows laptops", either as a replacement, or dual-boot.

I recently turned my spouse's Intel-based MacBook Pro into a dual-boot, and it's wonky as hell, especially with wifi. It seems others have run into similar issues running Linux on Mac. Sometimes it just means spending some time playing with drivers, configs, etc. So maybe I just need to spend a few weekends deep-diving into Mac hardware issues.

I encourage you to forge ahead, you'll learn a lot. Just be prepared for some Steve Jobs "gotchas".