First time Lightroom setup - Classic vs on-line?

It is going to be a lot of work to organize all my past photos and don't want to do it twice.   

By @blaises32579998

If you have done a lot of organizing by folders and not collections, and if you have added a lot of special metadata, that might tilt you toward Lightroom Classic.

The reasons are that if you upload all those photos to the Lightroom cloud, all local folder organization will be lost. Only Lightroom Classic collection organization will be preserved (collections will be converted to “albums”). In addition, support for metadata editing in cloud Lightroom is much weaker.

When transferring Lightroom Classic to a new computer, if it’s done properly, it should be very quick and easy. The link below is one example of how to do it. In short…copy the catalog and entire photo folder structure to a new computer, open the catalog on the new computer, and simply relink the topmost parent folder, showing Lightroom Classic where the folder is on the new computer. All subfolders should then relink, and you just continue on with your life.

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-move-lightroom-to-new-computer/

One advantage that Lightroom (not Classic) has is that it does make it easier to switch or use different computers, because it is not permanently tied to any computer. All of your photos, and their organization, are in the cloud, and all of your computers and mobile devices are simply clients to that cloud server. So you can work with all of the images at any time on any signed-in device that can run Lightroom and has a good Internet connection.

(It is now possible to use Lightroom to edit images that stay in local folders, but it’s not really how the app is set up, so if you really want to organize and back up your photos in local folders, then you want Lightroom Classic.)

Given this should I set up lightroom classic on my work computer now and transfer it to a new computer in a year ...

If your company allows you t install your own software on their computer (many companies do not allow this), then sure, this is a good approach.

or just go on-line with lightroom?

This is also a good approach.

There are pros an cons to each, you can check out the information provided above, and there are many many many many many many many many discussions of these pros and cons on the internet. I can't tell you what YOU should do, because I don't know you, and I don't know what criteria might be important to you in making this decision.

[Moderator moved from Using the Community to Lightroom Classic.]

Lightroom Classic vs Lightroom CC  (see chart below).

Hope that helps.