For what reason are you trying to avoid docker? since most projects provide docker images and an example docker-compose.yml it's very easy to get the application you want running.
Otger projects that do plug and play application setup like yunohost etc. are casaOS and umbrel (both use docker under the hood btw)
It depends on your risk profile. On a private tracker it is much less likely that copyright trolls sit in the leech and log the ip of every peer, which is the main reason to use a vpn on public trackers. But it still increases your anonymity if you torrent over VPN.
And If your isp doesn't allow port forwarding you could become connectable by using a VPN provider that provides that feature
the family computer running ubuntu from 2010 on. I used it mainly for Web browsing and creating presentations for School. I was able to run League of Legends (that was in 2014 i think) through wine but i think it crashed in about 50% of Games during the loading screen :D. Linux gaming has truly come far since then (and now LoL doesn't run on Linux at all because of Riots Rootkit)
The domain for their instance got seized. They don't plan to host another public instance on a different domain but the development still continues you just need to spin up your own instance or use one someone else runs https://movie-web.github.io/docs/instances
Edit: I think they still run the backend that can by anyone. You'll just need to run your own fronted
I use Ubuntu server as well and for me it mainly was that I was already familiar with the Ubuntu way of doing things. :D And Ubuntu Server has a few more convenience features like kernel livepatching. And I think the software on Ubuntu LTS is a bit less outdated than that on Debian stable
I run Anonaddy on a oracle cloud server without issues. You'll need some SMTP relay service like smtp2go or mailjet of course. But other than that it works fine.
It's probably best to still use a VPN or seedbox. But the chance that you get some nice mail is much lower because much more effort is required by the lawfirm. In order to get the IP addresses of people seeding the torrent they would first need an account and would get banned pretty quickly by not seeding or just snatching hundreds of torrents and not downloading them
https://github.com/fnep/mtv_dl
mtv_dl allows searching the Mediathekview database from the command line and download all videos that haven't already been downloaded and that fit the search.
I use it to download new episodes from TV shows that I'm interested in
.xyz Domains that are just numbers are $1 per year. and netcup has a deal a few times a year that prices .de domains at 1,30€ per year.