I did similar task recently, but used my old MacBook Pro 2011 (15 inch, with a faulty GPU). I chose DietPi, which I can recommend as a start distro for a newcomer. I chose it since I have some experience with it from my Raspberry Pi and I plan to give the laptop to a friend, who isn’t familiar with Linux. (For him to run Immich.) I have a similar MacBook Pro for myself, with Arch Linux installed (my old laptop with a few keys now broken). It’s on WiFi, not Ethernet, and where the signal isn’t very good. Yet, I’m mostly happy with the result. So far, being somewhat experienced with Linux, I think I’d choose DietPi for most server setups. I really love it, a good work done by maintainers. I can recommend going with it for your first self-hosted adventures.