> After having used NixOS for the last two years in my homelab, I wanted to go back to what I know.

This was exactly my impression of nixos: that after years of using it, it still wouldn't be something I "know".

get an Intel GPU in there to do all your media encoding.

These make great additions for encoding/decoding https://www.sparkle.com.tw/files/20240729114820639.pdf and usually near $150 or lower

I have that specific GPU and my attempts at using it with Jellyfin hasn't been very successful. Either jellyfin or the GPU crashes the majority of streaming attempts that I always just end up going back to CPU based encode/decode.