I started using Linux every day in 1999 and I’m glad I did.
Managing a Linux server is no different from managing a Linux desktop. If you were to consider the GUI nothing more than a display layer over the top of a server, you’d have a good mental map of how things work.
To get started, use the same desktop distro as your server and use their preferred or default windowing system.
Once you’ve familiar with it and the pitfalls it comes with, you’ll know which questions to ask for your next choice, but you will be able to build on what you already know.
In my experience, the single biggest bully on the internet are the servers controlled by Meta which in my experience literally perform DDoS attacks whilst crawling, hitting sites several orders of magnitude more than all the others combined.
Actively blocking them was the only option left.