Fellow noob here, lots of great suggestions already. I agree with the “find a specific idea and start there” so you can be vested in what you need to learn.

I suggest starting with an old raspberry pi or other old hardware that may not get the job done, but fiddle with it toward your goal until you prove you can do it. It’s so rewarding!

Once that’s done, move on to getting whatever hardware you need to execute the vision well. Mechanics don’t start learning by working on a Ferrari!

I agree, these helped me a ton. I’m still a noob but message me if you can’t find links with what u/lemmyingly said

I’m patiently (cf impatiently) awaiting the arrival of an Aoostar WTR Pro and components to build my first NAS and full Arr stack for Linux ISO’s.

I completed a proof of concept and learning a month ago on a Pi 5, and I can’t wait to get my hands dirty with something more real!

I’ll take any advice anyone throws my way :D and thanks to this community for the learning and inspiration since I joined Lemmy!

This is correct! Massive quality of life improvement

I second the Tailscale recommendation. It was easy and has spoiled me. I notice immediately if I’m browsing my phone at work and I’m not connected to my pihole lol