I live in upstate New York, I have a general class license, and this is my first time using Lemmy (or any federated social for that matter).
My mobile rig is a VR-N7500 "50W" VHF/UHF. It uses Bluetooth control from my phone, and it does APRS.
My QTH rig is a Xiegu G90 on a 40m EFHW powered by micro solar. I mainly do FT8, as well as a little VARA HF WinLink. (I'm a bit mic shy and my antenna setup isn't that great.)
I just use air cooling at the moment. I might have to get a little A/C unit for the closet though.
I run a Plex server, but I will likely be switching to Jellyfin soon.
Look into Kasm I am actually using it instead of a VPN because I can log into it, spin up a browser instance, and browse all of my local network with it directly in a web browser anywhere. I can also spin up a terminal in the browser and SSH into any box I need on my network.
For your hosting, I highly recommend Proxmox. It can do full on virtuals or containers and the interface is super easy to use.