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.
It’s almost like we told everyone long ago what was going to happen. But we are the paranoid ones.