This was such a great starting point for me! I second this recommendation.

I used this to learn and build a “proof of concept” on an old raspberry pi before buying anything new.

To anyone who ventures this far, enjoy this relevant Simpsons reference

I’ve seen rebuttals that this was an advertising firm embellishing capabilities to sell themselves, which…maybe. But I have too many anecdotal experiences to believe that.

Last month, my wife and I talked about how we hate Morgan Wallen. Never even typed his name until this post. And yet, after the discussion, she had IG sponsored posts for his out of state concert and Alexa had ads for him on Amazon music. Both within 2 days of the conversation.

I threw out the Alexa, increased Pinhole block lists, and we just leave our phones in another room in airplane mode for some topics.

Done, good luck!

I got an Aoostar WTR Pro for this exact purpose. I went with jellyfin over plex due to plex enshittification, haven’t had any issues yet. You can find smaller NAS devices if you want. I avoided Synology because something felt off, and now they’re enshittifying too.

I like the people suggesting to build your own, that’s my next plan.

Hagezi’s pro and above blocks the sponsored video ones which I found most intrusive: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists/main/domains/native.amazon.txt

These usually break the UI but you can still access apps so it’s functional.

• unagi-eu.amazon.com
• ktpx-eu.amazon.com

I’m using the hagezi list for now

Oh shoot, didn’t realize it just worked. Thanks!

Oh I haven’t made the leap yet due to the jailbreak apps but I’ve seen read that Jellyfin is decent on AppleTV, about as good as anywhere else. Probably not as polished as you’d expect on AppleTV but serviceable. I’ll update if I end up buying one!

This worked best for me for Linux ISOs on my fire stick: https://www.firesticktricks.com/jailbreak-fire-stick.html

Edited to un-embed, thanks u/lka1988

I second the AppleTV recommendation based on your disgust with the Roku UI ads, I am completely on your side there, but my similar search has bought me to AppleTV.

I currently run Amazon Fire Sticks which also have UI ads but my pihole is catching most of them and it’s dirt cheap with h.265 support. Plus it runs various hacked apps like TVMob, Cinema, and Cyberflix. That’s what keeps me from moving to an AppleTV or an n100 box already.

Firing up my NAS and Arrs. My Aoostar WTR Pro and all the components arrived, it’s all setup, and I swapped out the fan for a larger one to get more airflow into the nvme drive area since I live in a hot climate.

Spending the day configuring a vpn, sab, and qbit. Already learning a lot!

Fellow noob here, lots of great suggestions already. I agree with the “find a specific idea and start there” so you can be vested in what you need to learn.

I suggest starting with an old raspberry pi or other old hardware that may not get the job done, but fiddle with it toward your goal until you prove you can do it. It’s so rewarding!

Once that’s done, move on to getting whatever hardware you need to execute the vision well. Mechanics don’t start learning by working on a Ferrari!

I agree, these helped me a ton. I’m still a noob but message me if you can’t find links with what u/lemmyingly said

I’m patiently (cf impatiently) awaiting the arrival of an Aoostar WTR Pro and components to build my first NAS and full Arr stack for Linux ISO’s.

I completed a proof of concept and learning a month ago on a Pi 5, and I can’t wait to get my hands dirty with something more real!

I’ll take any advice anyone throws my way :D and thanks to this community for the learning and inspiration since I joined Lemmy!

Same!

Also curious in case I need to plan a transition