I'm interested in exploring the world of self hosting, but most of the information that I find is incredibly detailed and specific, such as what type of CPU performs better, etc. What I'm really looking for is an extremely basic square 1 guide. I know basically nothing about networking, I don't really know any coding, but it seems like there are a lot of tools out there that might make this possible even for a dummy like me.
Right now, my cloud computing is pretty much typical, I think. I use onedrive to sync my documents and old files. I need to be able to quickly access files on different devices, such as a powerpoint created on one device and presented on another. On my phone I use Android and my backups of downloads and photos and other data (messages, etc) are all on Google Drive /Google 1.
I'm willing to spend the time learning to an extent, but I'm not looking to become a network expert. I'm also willing to spend a little bit of money on hardware or a subscription service if necessary. Ideally I'd like to be out of this subscription service game, but the main goal is to be in charge of my own files. I have an old laptop running Linux to play around with and a fast and stable home internet connection.
Eventually, I would like to not only be syncing my files, photos, and documents in real time, but also I'd like to maybe try using it as an entertainment server to watch/listen to downloaded media on my home network.
Is there such a thing as a guide for a total beginner starting from zero? Is this worth attempting, or will I quickly find myself frustrated and in way over my head? Or, do I need to wait a little longer until more idiot-proof tools become available?
If this sort of thing is light enough to run on a Raspberry Pi or old laptop, is there anything wrong with just running it in the background on a modern(ish) computer? My desktop is a 5900x with 64GB of RAM. I already run Jellyfin, Sunshine, and a few other things in the background but kind of want to add a web server and mess around with some other stuff.
My main concern would be security I suppose if I'm hosting a web server on the same computer I store all my family backups and stuff. Would using virtual machines solve that?
I would run it in a VM
Nothing wrong, but there are some benefits of running dedicated hardware and stable server distro. Rpi or laptop will probably use way less electricity, but if your PC is running anyway than you actually save money by not using any extra hardware
Mostly yeah. Even VMs aren't perfect, but so widely used in the clouds of AWS and Google and whatnot that it's good enough.