I would echo that, if you have read the manual and still can't fix it then forums are the place. I see so many posts that start with "I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas"
Self hosting is a skill that needs learning, you can't start at the top.
Learning to read manuals and how to find the bit you need is part of that skill.
Can confirm, went from a pi4 to a pi5 with nvme drive, backup from the old host and restore to the new host. You will need to download the backup to your computer first.
It seems to me that a lot do the job they do, because it pays and as you say the environment is ok.
I'm not going to say you must enjoy, but if you didn't like it you would be looking for greener pastures. Or I would hope so, not just moaning about it.
I enjoy my job, but for the most part it covers my hobbies. So I tend to put more into it then if it was just the money keeping there.
That makes me very odd, I started with mandrake. Got very frustrated with the hand holding and moved to Debian, I'm not touching Ubuntu with a 10 foot clown pole.
Who in their right mind uses yaml for network config?
your in the right place, I also didnt notice the AWS crash. Where I work also got away light as we use AWS, but not got into all the managed services yet
I did run my homelab on about 9 pi's, all connected like spaghetti. If the NFS pi fell over it took out the lot.
So yes you can use pis as a homelab