It hasn't been suggested yet so here it is: I found plugging a raspberry or a refurbished/second-hand NUC on my home LAN made some things click faster than with

It hasn't been suggested yet so here it is: I found plugging a raspberry or a refurbished/second-hand NUC on my home LAN made some things click faster than with VMs on computer or a single remote server. After a while, it slowed down progresses though, but it depends on what you actually do. You really need to understand the basics of IP and networks though, so get that right first.