I have a spare laptop running Linux Mint. I would like to try running my own instance and sharing it with a few users to help out and for the experience. Below are the specs. Do you think it will be powerful enough, and if so, how many users would it be able to handle? I could restrict uploading of media if that would make a considerable impact.
Dell Inspiron 15-5000 CPU: Intel Core i5-5200U, 2 cores, 4 threads RAM: 8GB Storage: SanDisk SSD Plus 1TB
What exactly do you mean with “potentially attract unwanted attention to your IP”? Any public IP attracts automated bot probing, regardless of what you host on it… and the rest is pretty much FUD by VPN snake-oil vendors.