I just did three nodes this evening from 8.4.1 to 9, no issues other than a bit of farting around with my sources.list files.

Not noticing anything significant, but I haven’t tried the mobile interface yet.

Cantook used to be called Aldiko, and it was literally the first ebook Reader I ever got for Android. I don’t know if it’s the best, but it opens epubs and lets me set dark mode and use the volume buttons as page turn, and doesn’t gum up e-ink with animations, so it’s ideal for the Hisense. I don’t know why it only has 2/5.

I have a Hisense A5 that’s a crap phone, but Cantook side loaded and it’s the best e-reader I’ve ever owned, bar none. I can use it for podcasts too, although I usually just use my regular phone for that these days.

Feel free to ask questions if you have them. I am no expert, but I am willing to try to help if you get stuck.

1. You are going to find people who have done both. A lot of NAS devices run kind of low powered CPUs so separating it out into two devices can get you more compute power than a single device. For example, an old as the hills file bay may cost next to nothing, and then using your “last” desktop will get you a lot more storage and compute than a 1500$ modern NAS, but it’ll take up more space, cost more in electricity to run, and make more fan noise. This is the route I went. A modern NAS should be able to run what you listed though.
2. TrueNAS scale is all about storage, but it lets you also run containers. Proxmox is all about virtualization, but you can then run a storage solution inside a VM or container. It’s not the kind of thing you’re going to get a right answer for because either way can work. Both are well-documented, capable solutions. I have tried both at times, but I had a lot more experience with Proxmox by the time I deployed TrueNAS, so I stuck with Proxmox and use a TrueNAS box (bare metal) for backups. It really is a matter of preference.
3. If you have a MiniPC and NAS as separate devices, you will want to set up a network share, so you can seed on the MiniPC the copy that’s on the NAS. My seeding, Jellyfin, Plex, etc, all happen in a virtual hard drive mounted in a separate container from the services. Each of the services "see that drive as a network share despite being hosted on the same physical hardware.

I have a Tiny connected to a startech dual USB drive dock. The drives get warm, but not deadly hot. Moving big files is a bit slow, but for streaming on Plex and Jellyfin it works fine.

I didn’t know anything about docker when I set up my NC years ago, so I ran it as a snap on bare metal. Man, it’s gotten so much better! It used to really suck. Like, simple file transfers just didn’t work half the time, so I’d be retrying the same thing over and over… A few years ago, I literally migrated it from bare metal to a VM, but kept the exact same install. I have so much crap on it now, I think I’ll never bother switching it out to docker, just because of the inconvenience. I know the snap version can just run using a local hostname, you just have to set it in trusted domains setting. Might be the same in the docker image?

I use Gpoddersync to keep my phone and tablet in sync, but I have one podcast that keeps glitching out and redownloading over and over. Not sure why.

I got an N100 SZBox for cheap a few years ago(?) That has a big USB HDD drive plugged into it. Handles 1080p in house just fine, and I think the bloody hard drive eats more power than it does!

I’ve run yacy and searxng, and I find yacy flaky. I get really random search results, often not useful at all. I like Searxng though, although once in a while I have to hit refresh to get my result. Probably a simple fix, I’ve just never bothered to go down the rabbit hole.

I tried to start with OpenStack. Oof. Yup. Proxmox.

There are a lot of good guides. I run almost everything on proxmox these days, even virtualized my Windows, and (after a lot of messing around) got my GPU passed through for when I game.

Me too. It’s the parasympathetic nervous system. You anticipate bleeding. Your body goes, “Bleeding is bad. Drop the blood pressure, that’ll stop the bleeding!” It worked! I see a needle in a medical setting, I’m out like a light. Dentists are fun.

So, I tried that a long time ago, and it didn’t work. Tried it again today, same deal. Then, I tried a third time and actually hit the “Save” button this time… Yeah, I think Jellyfin was never the problem.

I’ve had both for a while now, but I find that subtitle playback is a bit spotty in Jellyfin. Is that fixed, or have I missed a setting somewhere? The other thing is that my libraries are alphabetical in Jellyfin, so “Anime” comes before “Kaiju”, and I truly can’t stand the idea that Godzilla gets sent to the back of the bus. Is there a way to customize the order of libraries?

I run each of them separately in containers!

I really like running proxmox and then containers for my apps, proxmox being basically Debian already.

I tried a couple of years ago, but it kept crashing after a day or two. Not sure if I set it up wrong or something? Currently running searx-ng, which I quite like.

Yup! PFBlockerNG. I thought the GeoIP thing from Maxmind was paid, since the setup asked for a license key. Nope, free. Just had to register.

I just set up some geofencing on pfsense, found alot of traffic that I didn’t know was happening. That freaked me out.

This happened to my laptop that I had a long time ago. I found a guide where I took out the motherboard, wrapped it in foil except where the GPU was, then used a blow dryer to heat the solder connecting the GPU to the mobo. Worked for another six months, then it happened again, so I replaced the system.