Do you want whatever you’re hosting to be internet accessible? Or local network only? As it being able to access from anywhere
If its something you want to be able to use full time, youll eventually want a dedicated machine. I have an *arr stack etc, which I share with a private group. Eventually downtime was an actual consideration and interrupted my normal usage of my main machine. I picked up a secondhand elitedesk mini Pc for £150 and its doing really well.
Potentially make use of tools like Zerotier for private networking (others hopefully will chime in with alternatives, but I have had good success with zerotier.
How do you want to host it, and are you willing to learn? Get a bit of knowledge on docker or podman but this is hardmode as most examples will be docker specific. Using containers will make things simpler. The most complicated part IMO is networking but even then its more docker networking stuff than general TCP/IP - (like you mentioned in your post)
OS - you mentioned using Linux? I personally use Ubuntu just out of defaulting to what i’ve previously used. But Im currently using Manjaro on my non host PC, which I am liking
Keep things secure - the more you expose to the internet, the more risk. Keep exposure as small as possible, use letsencrypt or alternatives for anything you want to access over the internet etc