Try reading this article, VPNs don’t make you more private they just shift the trust model away from your ISP https://www.matyaskoszegi.com/post/vpns-your-privacy-savior-or-just-another-creepy-middleman

Sometimes you just need to start small and not worry about over complicating things. I started my journey in 2011 running Plex on a crappy laptop

Search for dockstarter and trash guides. It will give you the foundations of what you need

For someone that doesn’t like the cli, I’d recommend fish instead of that as it just works with no setup.

A consistent 40fps on medium settings