There’s no right way, really. You can turn almost anything into a server.

If you have old hardware laying around I suggest you start with that. When you’re comfortable with setting everything up and using it on your day to day, then it’s time to invest into hardware.

You need to have this extension or similar to be able to minimize to tray on gnome: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/615/appindicator-support/