I always point people here: youtu.be/uPYjJYQEFSg
Hard to give you hints when we don’t know what your background is, so here is some basics:
For starting selfhosting I’d recommend getting comfortable with the linux command line at first (this may help: www.linuxcommand.org). Set up a VM in Virt-manager / VirtualBox / VMWare / whatever hypervisor you want, install a Linux image (I’d recommend plain Debian without desktop environment). Now you have a sandbox where you can toy around. If you’re on windows you can use WSL2. If you’re already on a linux desktop, toy around there.
If you already got some hardware like a raspberry pi or old Laptop, get that up and running with a distro of your choice, plug it into your network and SSH into it, then you have got your playground there. Get the basic commands in like ls, pwd, cat, tail, touch, mkdir, rm, … And some things you can do with them. Check out their respective man-pages.
After that, install some packages, change configs (I’d recommend nano over vim for starters). From now on, there are no boundaries of what to do. Set up your first basic webserver with apache / nginx / caddy, install docker / podman and containerize / get some images, set up pihole, nextcloud, jellyfin, do whatever you like… Congratulations, you are now “self hosting”.
Maybe some day switch that Raspberry pi out for a thin client as seen in the picture from OP and install a hypervisor like Proxmox on it. If you got all that, which may take a while, you can consider networking and firewalls IMHO (you could get a cheap router that supports OpenWRT to learn about these things). Don’t open ports to the internet as long as you’re not 100% sure what you are doing. You can set up a VPN with DynDNS on most modems / routers connected to your ISP though, opening up your self hosted services only to you / anyone with access. Or use something like Tailscale / Twingate.
I could go on, but like I said, self hosting and home labbing is kind of use case / requirement specific.
tofu@lemmy.nocturnal.garden 2 months ago
Just a tip for hardware: don’t buy anything unless you really know what you need. Just start tinkering with some old computer/laptop. Most services will run fine on anything up to ~10 years old stuff
tazeycrazy@feddit.uk 2 months ago
The only thing I bought was a switch and a NAS, both second hand. You can spend a lot for nothing in return.
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 2 months ago
Once you have stuff running on an old computer you’ll get to know what you actually need and can spend your money more intelligently. If you do buy anything, buy an ~8 year old corporate desktop. They’re cheap as chips because they’re close to ewaste, but 4/6th Gen Intel systems have enough performance to really do a ton with in the homelab scene