What do you want to self host? To learn or experiment buy a cheap old x86 box. I get mine at goodwill auction. Otherwise desktop is good if you want something that needs more compute and that you’d spin up as needed vs always on.
Writing by hand with a pen you like on nice quality paper can be enjoyable. The best for me is when I journal on my typewriter.
I am happy with Proton.
Learn Linux TV
Here we go! Congrats to the System76 team!