A student asked me about how to get more familiar with Linux if they have a Windows PC? I suggest looking at Oracle VirtualBox for virtualization. It's available for free. It runs on almost any hardware. It runs several distros of Linux (that I have used it for) very well.
Linux distributions (distros) to look at. Ubuntu. I suggest looking at desktop first because the requirements are less and it has a GUI. For studying cyber you want to look at Security Onion and Kali. Security Onion is great in that it has the essential Network security Monitoring (read that 'Blue Team') tools installed. Kali has many, many tools installed for exploring both offense (Red team) and defensive (Blue Team) security.
If you want to run and use more than one operating system at the same time you'll probably want an external monitor (rather then trying to switch back and forth between virtual machine and Windows). make sure that your computer supports a second display.
I'd suggest a minimum i5, with 8-16 Gb RAM, and 1 Tb HDD. 14-15 inch display capable of 1920x1080. 2 USB ports (USB v3 if possible). HDMI port is nice to have. Lots of Dell hardware comes with a DisplayPort; which via and adapter can drive a VGA or HDMI display. Windows 10 Pro. Oracle VirtualBox. See Dell Refurb.