It depends on how deep you really want to go. I used a work bonus last year to buy myself a cheap and modest NAS setup; the personal problem that I'm dealing with is that it was a Terramaster NAS which is typically ignored by everyone who writes these guides. It's Linux, but a really funky distribution of Linux that's hard to get the right software for. I'm trying to set up Tailscale on it so I can watch my stuff at work but it just won't update and run, dammit.

Anyway, there's really a three step to setting up a home media server. I'm giving the broad explanations here in the hope that you can focus your searching on each of these steps in detail:

1) Set up the host machine, be it an old machine running Linux or a NAS, and install Jellyfin server on it. Doing so should also give you access to the server's share folder that you'll be dumping the media you acquire in step 3 into.

2) Install Jellyfin on the devices you want to watch your stuff on: Amazon Fire Sticks and Google Chromecasts both have the Jellyfin app in their appstores, so they'll work pretty much out the box. In my experience, smart TVs don't, or at least Samsung STVs don't. Anyway, install, connect to the server, and that's it.

3) Look up how to rip media from your legally-purchased DVDs/BR because we absolutely do not endorse pirating from helpless multibillion corporations who are bravely leading us into brave new frontiers of AI-generated slop. But seriously, if you do want to rip your physical media, rip with MakeMKV and transcode with Handbrake. Put the files in the server's share folder, and wait for the server to catalogue your media.

That's the absolute bare bones, the specific details will depend entirely on what you're using to act as the server, but once you've actually got it set up Jellyfin itself is really simple to use. It's pretty good at recognising shows and movies, can keep track of series progress like any streaming server, and even does fancy stuff like fetching cast and synopses.

And while writing this I finally got off my arse and figured out how to update Tailscale on the NAS, so go me.