@jamalabo1

If you’ve installed Ubuntu on your laptop, it’ll auto-configure DHCP / networking for you as a part of the setup, so you shouldn’t need to specifically configure that part.

If you’re wanting to serve data from your laptop (i.e. use it as a web server), you’ll need a static IP or you’ll need to use a service provider, such as No-IP, to keep things in sync.

https://www.noip.com/

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Beyond that, you’ll need to setup Apache or NGINX as well as any software that you need to handle serving data. The same guides here at DigitalOcean should work just the same on your laptop.

For example:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-linux-nginx-mysql-php-lemp-stack-in-ubuntu-16-04

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-linux-apache-mysql-php-lamp-stack-on-ubuntu-16-04

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With a VPS, you’d still configure everything as per the tutorials, but instead of running it from home, you’d be using DigitalOcean and would login using Terminal or another terminal-style emulator and gain access to SSH.