TYVM for the advice and feedback.
Not much progress as I haven't been able to pick up an Intel NIC.
(Interestingly enough, the NIC I bought is no longer offered where I bought it!)
Perhaps labeling this a "server" is a bit of a misnomer. Is what I'm working towards more like a NAS?
Besides the NIC detection issue, I believe this box will work. It won't be up 24/7 and I hope to disable booting directly into KDE and only it when "needed".
One seemingly helpful video was:
How to turn an old laptop into a NAS Server - Beginners Guide
https://youtu.be/8ARldVpkxkA
... but the samba instructions differed from an earlier video I watched.
There is a plethora of "how to's" online, but does anybody have any favorites for this use case?
thanks in advance.
peace & 42
- jason