New guy

So I'm a, 2 year, retired owner of an IT VAR. I wasn't too involved with security, but we were a Watchguard partner. I currently have a T45 that is NFR and it expires at the end of Jan. '27. I need and want to replace it. But I'm not up for paying what they want.

I have the parts to build a new desktop that will be way overkill for an OPNsense box, but I have them; might as well use them for something.

Intel i7-12700KF

16 GB DDR4

2 TB NVMe

2xIntel i350-T2 nics (won't use the onboard nic, only need 3 ports)

ASRock Z690 Pro RS motherboard

Radeon R5 240

Anyway, I think OPNsense is the way for me to go. I looked a pfSense, but got bad vibes off of it.

I've been a total Windows geek for over 30 years. We worked the beta of NT 3.5. I'm really new with and not knowledgeable about Linus/FreeBSD.

What I want to do is have really good security out of this project. My wife and I are converting to Macbooks. I want to move from Watchguard's DNS Watch to NextDNS. I'm going to keep their Authpoint for MFA. I have that layered onto VPN. Right now I have both IKEv2 and SSL VPNs setup. Run into issues frequently trying to get the IKEv2 connected at hotels, SSL on 443 always works.

Other than that, it's basically just normal browsing, email etc.

I want strong IPS and Geo fencing. Anyway, that's what I want out of this.

Just want to know a), will my hardware work, and b) am I making a mistake going down this path?