Forgive the question, I have an idea of what I want to run on it (jellyfin, sonarr, etc) but I am having a hard time figuring out optimal OS to run.
Windows? Linux? Something else? Any beginner advice is welcome!
I wouldn’t do Windows, Linux will give you freedom to use docker for most things that you might want to host. As for which distro use whatever you find nice, there’s not going to be much difference. Some of the things people are suggesting are great for extremely advanced use cases, for just spinning up some services whatever you feel more comfortable would be best.