Libb

On that I could not tell much: I’m really not a dev and I use my Linux like I used to use my Mac. But I have little doubt there are a few more interesting alternatives to Fedora.

But if the GPL is a thing this should not matter that much. That’s also why I worry to see a big distro like Ubuntu considering replacing GPL core tools with non GPL ones. Maybe I’m just paranoid but I see that as a long-term way to get rid of the GPL and took control of Linux to make it their product, not ours anymore.

what is an American distro?

I mean does the kernel or DE have a nationality if they’re Free Software? Anyone is supposed to be able to reuse them, no? Exactly like China has already building its own OS based on GNU-Linux

That’s why, as a mere user myself, I consider the GNU-GPL license so essential (so much more than the code being ‘Open Source’) as GPL makes it so that no one can limit what anyone else wants to do with the code. And even if the USA one day stopped being our best friends, they would have no legal claim to prevent us (or China, or anyone else) from building on top of their code or to fork it. Freedom, is great.

I use to think I was moderately good at computers

That doesn’t say a lot. It all depends what you already can do with a computer. Setting up a server is already somewhat technical stuff. Using a computer to browse the web and click stuff, is not—heck, even I use Linux and I’m no expert ;)

Just looking fro advice on my first build.

As a true beginner, imho you need a beginner-friendly distro aka one that will do most of the work for you. I use Mint and I like it a lot but there are plenty choices available (and I don’t run my own server neither). So, take some time to find one you would like to use. Also, if you only want to create a server (not use it as your personal computer) you should focus on a distribution for servers, not your usual end-user one. I mean, any distribution can be used to setup a server (they all have access to the same tools) but some are more focused on general users (like Mint) while other are more on technical users like people that will admin a server.

So, my first advice would be to tell you to decide what exactly it is you want to do with that Linux computer. From that you will then be able to pick a good distro and then start reading teh docs as needed. And that reading will also depends your skills level. Something like Arch (a great distro) has an amazing Wiki, like it’s really excellent. But it’s also very technical and not that beginner-friendly. Then, there are things like https://linuxjourney.com/ that are so cool for beginning but won’t be as complete ;)

I would not try to setup a server if I had not started using Linux already to get some familiarity with the system and its basics. For that you can pick any distro you like. Once again, I would suggest Mint out of personal preferences but I should probably say that before that I was a very happy Arch user too (I just realized I preferred to get less frequent updates)… There is not one best distro everyone would agree upon but there are various ones that are better suited to whatever type of user one may be.

You’re welcome. Hope you will enjoy Mint ;)

Also, I could probably reformat the entire laptop if I could only figure out how to replace the Google Drive for sync backup for roughly 15 GB of personal photos and videos.

If by replace you mean find a non-Google alternative that will work fine under Linux (or Windows, Mac iOS/Android), you may want to check Filen (affiliate link this matters to your specific requirements, read further).

What is Filen? It’s a small German company which offers cloud with end-to-end (zero knowledge) encryption, aka what’s considered best practice security and privacy-wise. They don’t offer as much features as Google or other big cloud providers, it’s a really small company, and their apps are kinda on the rougher edge of things but they work fine. The one real drawback for photos backups on mobile is that it’s not fully automated (one needs to start the app for it to start copying the pictures) but it works fine on Mint (fellow Mint user here) ;)

By the default, their free plan is 10GB which is not enough for you but if you use my affiliate link, or anyone’s else, you double that free plan to 20GB (it’s a one time extra, you can’t stack them up but it’s really free for you to keep and use). Also, if you ever decide to upgrade to a paid plan, you would keep your free storage as an extra bonus. Finally, once you created an account (a free one is enough), you should be able to share your own affiliate link and that could get you up to max 30GB more free storage, making it a total of 50GB free storage. Disclaimer: I’m a paid user of Filen.

You may also want to consider Ente.io which is another encrypted service focusing this time only on photos. It works real well but you only get 5GB free. Since I barely do any photo myself, that was not my priority but had it be, I would have seriously considered using them (and one of their paid plans) ;)

Thoughts?

Like already mentioned if you care about your photos, or any other file, make backups (no need to use that company’s services (even though they work nice) it’s just a fine explanation of what a good backup strategy should be).