I like a physical calculator if I'm doing my taxes, monthly budget, or if I'm doing a lot of calculations. If I'm quickly adding something up, I use Wolfram Alpha or my phone.

Use Temurin Java 8 JDK/JRE. It's designed to be 1:1 compatible with Oracle Java.

As a Mac Systems Administrator, I have extensive experience with Tart, having been an early adopter. My role involves rigorously testing various aspects of Mac systems, such as settings, scripts, workflows, and software deployments. Tart has been instrumental in this process, particularly due to its capability to swiftly set up virtual machines (VMs). A key feature I frequently utilize is booting a VM's macOS into Recovery OS, which allows me to disable security settings. This step is crucial for enrolling devices in DEP, despite manual registration being a different process. By disabling SIP, I can activate specific flags that enable DEP-like features.

I adore tart. I've used it over a year for work. It works very well with Cirrus Labs' images.

Can this be used to setup a dev Linux VM ? Run Jetbrains IDEs etc on the VM ? And if I were to run PyTorch then will it have access to GPU / MPS ?

You can setup a Linux dev VM but unfortunately it won’t have access to the GPU. There is Rosetta 2 support though which works brilliantly with amd64 binaries.