What is MOTD?

I’d say you install the VPN on the home machine, then when you turn on tailscale on your phone, the traffic should be Phone->home machine (exit node)->VPN

I’m using Lawnchair because it allows folders in the app drawer and I fell the need to group apps. Does Murine do this?

I have a very similar setup. I work from home and use a tablet with symphonium for radio and my personal collection. When I’m in the car since I don’t have Android Auto, I just connect my phone with the Bluetooth. And I use tailscale as the VPN.

I went with GitHub. In the end it’s just an OAuth service, to provide identity. It’s not used to gather data on you (just the same we already share by visiting regular websites).
I’m still gonna lookup Headscale and Wireguard because It’s been on my radar.

Thx. I’ve tried the musicbrainz Picard app and I don’t like it, I’ll check quodlibet. I’m using beets at the moment but it’s terminal based. All on Linux.

Out of curiosity, what’s the app that she’s using?
I’ve been looking for a good tagger.

I’m using airsonic, a foss alternative to subsonic. It can have multiple accounts and shared playlists

I use bandcamp regularly, although i tend to just buy and download from the webpage, and then I let beets organise and copy the files into predefined directories. It also can do zip files.

Yesterday I got into a “funny image” post showing someone who couldn’t use the correct date format online and quickly found a comment, with tailors, about the most efficient way of searching through a date-time format. I stopped and just thought that was the most "Reddit"moment I’ve had so far here and it felt nice

Bandcamp is where I do most of my shopping. Not sure where you are located. In Europe, for alternatives I use Qobuz and have used Bleep.
I tend to use it for more “commercial” albums.

I’m currently using beets to tag my music and airsonic for streaming

I’m using airsonic with symfonium, gotta check Gonic (it’s been mentioned twice in the comments)

As others have commented, stick with the Mac.
I recommend installing proxmox on it and run the apps you want. You can run pihole in a VM.
Do you need a NAS? Not really, but if you have cash available maybe get a used tower, use the disks you have and install TrueNAS. And this will only cost you max €200

https://www.alpinelinux.org/about/ Check out Alpine. Might just be enough for what you want

https://konstakang.com/devices/rpi4/LineageOS20-ATV/

Maybe this might be something to consider

Have you tried enabling the FtInTitle Plugin? https://beets.readthedocs.io/en/stable/plugins/ftintitle.html

I just installed tailscape and it works for my needs. Will read up on your docs. Thx

Do you have desktop or laptop?
For desktop, I recommend getting an HDD for storage. They’re cheaper, I bought a 4tb Seagate Ironwolf for less than 100€.
I also have a 1tb nvme, where I store things that require fast reads like my gaming collection while the system is installed in an SSD. (The parts were not bought at the same time). For laptop, you might want to stick to what you have inside and just get a good external USB. The usual brands are still good and I think prices have flatten across the industry.