start small, and you should be able to do it no problem.

first off, ignore the wd. its storage. you dont want your storage and your processing mixing (i wouldnt anyway)

• find yourself an old, shitty pc with >=4gb of ram, processor irrelevant.
• slap a small ssd in, or dont. install linux
• install docker
• start installin containers

lots of available, preconfigured containers with instruction over at: https://hub.docker.com

when you get your containers functional you can connect your media software (jellfyin) to the wd storage

I'm a Linux newb and I managed to set this up a couple months ago. Despite being new to servers and containers, I did not find it too difficult.

Here is the guide I used: https://zerodya.net/self-host-jellyfin-media-streaming-stack/

The guide above doesnt include Audiobookshelf installation, but you will quickly see that adding Audiobookshelf to the basic setup is very easy. There are two things I've learned since the initial setup, which are worth a deviation from the guide above.

First, the recommendation in the guide to use a separate userid and groupid (1001) for the docker containers vs. your own userid/groupid (1000) is a royal PITA and not necessary for most basic use cases.

Second, and much more important, you MUST set up your VPN in a Gluetun container and then make your torrent client container a "service" of the Gluetun container. Yes, I know, that sounds like some advanced-level abstraction, but it is actually extremely easy to do and it will save you from getting a nastygram from your ISP when your VPN loses connection. The MPIAA is extremely active with automated detection and processing of torrenting data, but if you set up your VPN with Gluetun, you have a perfectly effective kill switch when your VPN connection drops. And, no, the built-in killswitch on your VPN client won't work with containers.

Here is the guide I used to make that modification to the initial setup: https://www.smarthomebeginner.com/gluetun-docker-guide/

Good luck! It was fun to set up, and even more fun to use.

I've been doing Linux server administration for 20 years now. You'll always have to duckduckgo things. You'll never keep it all in your head, even just a single server with a handful of services. Docker and containers really isn't too hard. Just start small and build from there. If you can learn how the chroot command works, you've pretty much learned docker. It's just chroot with more features.

Leave Servarr as last thing to setup because it requires many services to work together and even small mistake in config will make it not work. Its not hard, but it will be easier after you learn how to setup jellyfin or audiobookshelf.

I have no experience with your hardware, but after you install docker and docker-compose get Portainer and get familiar with docker compose. Portainer is simple gui that lets you manage all containers.

So for example, you get docker-compose example for jellyfin, eddit PUID, GUID, path to your library folder, copy that in Portainer Stacks, hit deploy and BAM! Your jellyfin is available on http://localhost:8096

You might face many issues in the begining, but dont give up, its getting more and more easy over time. I still think Im a noob, but have no problems with my 40ish containers running on poor home server 😉. Dont forget this community is awesome and helpfull

Take your time and don't hang your hat on anything until you've run it for a while yourself before you subject your family to it, no matter how excited you are. You'll just get people wary of trying your projects if it's always failing, unless you have someone that knows how these things go and that you're learning, and is willing to help you sort out bugs.

I recommend you to check casaos. It's a frontend for docker containers with his own "app store" with all you want and more easily configurable.

Maybe is not for you, as is so easy that maybe you don't learn anything, but maybe it's a way to start and investigate without frustrating blocks.

I feel myself at the same level than you, and currently investigating how to setup a DNS + VPN server, only for fun/learn

Linux is fun! Of course it's doable. At first you'll have a hard time and need to look up everything at ddg or whatever. But you'll learn a lot. Go in small steps. One thing at a time. And envision the feeling you'll get when you succeed!

Seconding the other user's post, it's just storage. You can use it temporarily for the Plex server but I highly recommend offloading that task to a real computer.

A used Optiplex is usually the go-to because it's low power and capable of doing the job. Just make sure it has enough RAM to handle the containers you wanna put on it.

Docker is a little bit of learning but you'll get the hang of it. I found docker-compose to be much easier to learn. Portainer or Dockge can help by giving you a GUI, if that's your preferred style (like me).

Docker is a moderately sized step beyond VM.

I might recommend setting up VMs with something easy like VirtuaBox. When you have that figured out move on to Docker.

If your a casual user VMs are likely sufficient.

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

5 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 4 acronyms.

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