Anyway, I started with docker desktop on winblows 11. I learned the ropes and then when docker desktop inshittified in an update, I switched to Rancher. All my services are picked up on their local ports by nginx-proxy-manager and then sent through a cloudflared tunnel to the domain I bought, with a customized homer page and strict access controls. Because the VM on windows was running my poor little refurbished Thinkstation too hard, I recently deleted winblows (such a good feeling) and moved over to a headless Debian server, which I run through SSH on my refurbished thinkcenter. 97% usage down to 13% (seriously). I'm only in this computer game for about $500 total and I have more than a few TBs of storage (used SAS drives were really cheap a little while ago and the hardware/learning curve is worth it). If you don't game, old stuff works just fine for pennies on the dollar (I have unplugged backups of all my really important stuff).

I use AI for the CLI stuff I down have memorized. Linux is still frustrating- File ownership is foreign and super irritating to me, being my most recent source of frustration. My Filebrowser instance broke itself and I haven't gotten it back, and of the 30 times I've tried to get Nextcloud to work, I've been successful zero times.

Anyway, it has been hours of my life arguably wasted but it has been fun and educational, and I get to give the finger to big data for the most part. I don't like the cloudflared thing, but free is hard to beat and unless I start torrenting again, I really don't need or want to pay for a VPS. I search this forum and others for new containers to spin up. I marvel at other folks' setups and the money they have spent. I'm a rusty and recycled guy, not a new and shiny guy, but man some of this custom-built, laser-cut, 3d printed stuff is cool.

I just wanted to share my experience and hopefully encourage anyone who is just starting or is on the fence.

firefox:
image: jlesage/firefox
container_name: firefox
ports:
- "5808:5800"
environment:
- TZ=America/Chicago
- PUID=1000
- PGID=1000
#- VNC_PASSWORD=${VNC_PASSWORD}
- DARK_MODE=1
- WEB_AUDIO=1
- WEB_FILE_MANAGER=1
- WEB_FILE_MANAGER_ALLOWED_PATHS=ALL
- WEB_HOST_CLIPBOARD_SYNC=1
volumes:
- ./firefox/config:/config:rw
- /SWAP:/downloads
shm_size: "2gb"
restart: unless-stopped
networks:
- web