Do you have any advice or suggestions about it?
- Hardware (what should be enough for a local PC, or VPS…)
- Software (OS [Debian, Yunohost, other…], “containerization” (Docker, virtual machines?), dashboard, management, backups, VPN tunneling…)
- “Utilities” to host (Lemmy, Peertube, Matrix, Mastodon, Actual Budget, Jellyfin, Forgejo, Invidious/Piped, local Pi-Hole, email, dedicated videogame servers like for Minecraft, SearXNG, personal file storage like Drive, AI [in the future, when I can afford a rig that can run a local model decently]…)
I’m aware it’s a lot of stuff to take on, so, do you have any advice on where to start? (how to find a cheap PC to experiment with, if not get a VPS, what to test on it, what “utilities” to try self-hosting first…)
What are you trying to do?
In the business world, this would be your business requirements. Once you have those then you can spec the technical requirements.
Without having a target, you’ll just be all over the place.
Start with one thing, get that setup, get management for it in place, backup processes, etc.
Then do the next thing.
Iceberg made a great rec - start with Jellyfin. It’s pretty easy, but touches on all sorts of stuff like storage, backups (which media is worth backing up?), etc. Plus it has a high reward - watching what you want, when you want, from almost any device.