You being a Rust and C guy who loves the 1990s, I would tend to suggest and lean towards CLN + bitcoind and run it barebones on some old hardware.
Would also not just run it on a raspi, but install links are below if you want to use their setup on any hardware, its mostly scripts and you can dive in. If you want further info on guides for channels, I'd highly recommend DarthCoin's guides. If you're running neutrino you don't need the full blockchain.
Docs for CLN https://docs.corelightning.org/docs