Cantook used to be called Aldiko, and it was literally the first ebook Reader I ever got for Android. I don’t know if it’s the best, but it opens epubs and lets me set dark mode and use the volume buttons as page turn, and doesn’t gum up e-ink with animations, so it’s ideal for the Hisense. I don’t know why it only has 2/5.

Climbed a tree, tried to jump to the next tree. Failed. Fortunately, I snagged a wasp nest on the way down. Nothing broken, anaphylaxis. Not breathing sucks. (I lived.)

I always wanted to try catfish, and there was a restaurant I really like that does everything else really well, so I tried it and… Nah. Tasted like fishy dirt meat. I’ve had bad duck, too.

I have a Hisense A5 that’s a crap phone, but Cantook side loaded and it’s the best e-reader I’ve ever owned, bar none. I can use it for podcasts too, although I usually just use my regular phone for that these days.

Feel free to ask questions if you have them. I am no expert, but I am willing to try to help if you get stuck.

1. You are going to find people who have done both. A lot of NAS devices run kind of low powered CPUs so separating it out into two devices can get you more compute power than a single device. For example, an old as the hills file bay may cost next to nothing, and then using your “last” desktop will get you a lot more storage and compute than a 1500$ modern NAS, but it’ll take up more space, cost more in electricity to run, and make more fan noise. This is the route I went. A modern NAS should be able to run what you listed though.
2. TrueNAS scale is all about storage, but it lets you also run containers. Proxmox is all about virtualization, but you can then run a storage solution inside a VM or container. It’s not the kind of thing you’re going to get a right answer for because either way can work. Both are well-documented, capable solutions. I have tried both at times, but I had a lot more experience with Proxmox by the time I deployed TrueNAS, so I stuck with Proxmox and use a TrueNAS box (bare metal) for backups. It really is a matter of preference.
3. If you have a MiniPC and NAS as separate devices, you will want to set up a network share, so you can seed on the MiniPC the copy that’s on the NAS. My seeding, Jellyfin, Plex, etc, all happen in a virtual hard drive mounted in a separate container from the services. Each of the services "see that drive as a network share despite being hosted on the same physical hardware.

I am talking out of my butt here, but I read a related book, “Man After Man”, by the same author, when I was a kid, and it stuck with me, so many years later when Amazon became a thing, I tried to find it and his other books. I wound up in a rabbit hole of Google that suggested that he does some of the art and was discredited for it? At least. I think I remember something like that. Man After Man was trippy though.

Edit: Googled a bit, can’t find reference to this now. Maybe I’m wrong? It could happen, in theory.