Beginner with $250 and zero Linux experience - talk me out of buying the wrong thing
Ok so I've been lurking here for weeks and I'm finally pulling the trigger on a home setup. Before I do something dumb, I'd rather ask first and get roasted in the comments than buy hardware that turns into an expensive paperweight.
Here's where I'm at. Windows/Mac guy my whole life, I can survive in a terminal but I've never actually run anything on Linux in the wild. Docker is just a whale logo to me right now. I learn fast though and I'm fine reading docs - I just don't want to spend two weekends going down a rabbit hole that everyone here knows is the wrong one.
Budget is around $250. I know that's not a lot. I'd rather start small and upgrade in 6 months once I actually know what I need, than drop a grand on something I'll misuse. No rack stuff - I live in an apartment, my partner already side-eyes me when I talk about this.
What I want to play with: a bit of everything honestly. Jellyfin and the *arr stack obviously, Nextcloud or Immich for photos (my Google One sub is bleeding me dry), maybe Home Assistant later. Mostly I just want to learn - the actual goal isn't "replace Netflix in 30 days", it's "in a year I want to actually know what I'm doing".
A few things I'm genuinely stuck on and would love your take:
For $250, what should I actually be hunting on the used market? I keep seeing Lenovo Tiny / Dell Micro / HP Mini thrown around (the 1L form factor thing) - is there a specific model or CPU generation that's the sweet spot right now? Or am I better off grabbing an old desktop tower someone's selling cheap and dealing with the power bill?
Proxmox or just Debian + Docker?
Learning resources - what actually worked for you? I don't need 40 YouTube tabs open, I need the 2-3 channels or guides that are genuinely worth the time. Bonus points if there's a sensible order to learn things in (like, Linux basics first, then Docker, then reverse proxy, then services? Or just deploy one thing end-to-end and learn by breaking it?).
And lastly - what do beginners always get wrong? Like the stuff you wish someone had screamed at you on day one. Backups I assume. What else.
Not looking for a custom guide, happy to do the reading. Just need pointers from people who've been here so I don't waste the budget or burn out before I get to the fun part.
Cheers