What do you want to self host? To learn or experiment buy a cheap old x86 box. I get mine at goodwill auction. Otherwise desktop is good if you want something that needs more compute and that you’d spin up as needed vs always on.
I wish I could get over the learning curve with GIMP but tbh my current workflow involves a windows 10 virtual machine for Photoshop. It works for my needs without GPU pass through.
I’m using Evolution as I prefer their interface. I’m curious to give the new Thunderbird a try when there’s a flatpak.
+1 for Brother. Works great printing from Linux.
FreeTube is great for downloading YouTube content to Jellyfin so my daughter can watch it without ads.
Do you really need to dual boot for office?
I’m doing fine compatibility wise with the OnlyOffice flatpak. If you have a school account with Microsoft perhaps the PWA for Word, etc. will meet your needs.
For a laptop distro with a good tiling DE out of the box you might enjoy Pop!_OS.
I’ve used it in a VM just to mess around. I’d like to install it on an old ThinkPad and try to compile some applications.