joyofpeanuts

If you want to simply make a folder containing media accessible to all on the network, I suggest to install minidlna, a UPnP server. All you need is to have the media folders accessible by minidlna. Otherwise the config is a simple text file.

See this: https://www.debian.org/releases/bullseye/amd64/ch03s04.en.html Minimum 1Gb, preferably 2 for a desktop.

Debian with the choice of LXDE as window manager. Debian offers high configurability to remove any heavy component.

I second this. I have been using Ubuntu for at least 10 years by I really do not like snaps or flatpaks for that matter. So, after some disappointing attempts using Debian in the past, I had a new go at it 1-2 years ago and I was positively surprised: Ubuntu without the useless bloat - kind of normal because Ubuntu is based on Debian. For sure the my next PC will be using Debian: efficient, highly configurable, and quite user friendly once you understand it’s ways of configuring things.