Sorry for the late reply.

No existing hardware for me to self host but I do have 2 Linux laptops which can be used to practice but not full on self hosting as they both are main laptops. I do plan on buying a nas but that is not my main priority right now and the money has to go elsewhere.

I have a list of things I want to self host but for staters, ente, paperless ngx, nextcloud, media server.

Yes I heard of Ubuntu server but was scared I was going to need more Linux skills to navigate. Glad it won’t be that way but I will probably learn. Thanks for docker compose I heard of it but have not gotten to the stage of using it yet.