I haven’t tried it myself yet, but there is a GPodder sync server app for Nextcloud that can let you sync subscriptions and play time to any compatible app. This would probably be the best solution as it would use your existing setup.

openSUSE Leap has been amazing on my home server. YaST makes tasks like setting up a Samba share or even something like a DHCP server incredibly easy, and for anything I can’t do in YaST there’s a massive variety of command line tools I can use (for me mostly Docker). SSH access was a breeze to set up too, as it’s just an option in the installer or in YaST after setup.

Died 1990s, born 2025 - welcome back Mac hard drive firmware lockdowns