I was actually targeting a 7800XT on an AM4 build already lol!

Yeah, it’s just hard to justify the cost when I already have a PS5 and not a whole lot of free time. It makes more sense to wait until the next generation of consoles comes out and then get something that runs games at that time at 1440p, 60+fps. Right now I’d just be building a lateral system for no real reason, pretty late in the current gen lifecycle.

I don’t think I’ve even heard of that, so I’ll look into it a bit more. I was leaning more toward an AMD build since that tends to play nicely with Linux compared to Intel/Nvidia. And there were a couple of distros I was interested in trying on my old laptop to compare before committing.

I’m not looking forward to what happens to steam post-gaben. I expect a stupid successor to IPO and fuck it all up.

Agreed, but if I’d had the money at the time, I absolutely would’ve jumped at the steam machine and steam controller. I want a modern one now more than ever. If it weren’t for parts getting shittier and pricier, I’d probably build one myself this spring/summer and figure out which distro would be best for it. My steam deck is great and I want basically the exact same thing but more powerful at the cost of not being a handheld. Bonus points if I can easily remote play that new steam machine through my steam deck, which I think is a reasonable expectation. And I’d love to run an HDMI out splitter to easily swap between using it as a PC at my desk or using it as a console from my couch.

Dope! I appreciate you taking the time! So it sounds like a slightly less bloated version of 10 that gets more support, but it may not be exactly legal and breezy to obtain for my personal home use.

With the possible exception of finding drivers for a device or two, it sounds like I’ll be better off just pivoting to a Linux distro mid 2025. I have been happy with SteamOS on my docked steam deck with m+kb and controller, so I’m sure I won’t be missing much by picking a popular distro that I can find troubleshooting guidance for when I hit inevitable snags.

A few questions since you seem to know much more about this than I can probably even find from searching:

• What is “IoT”? What is “LTSC”?
• Other than update support, how is this different from my existing home laptop’s Windows 10?
• Is this free? Will there be obnoxious limitations or reminders to pay to activate?
• Why should I as a medium skill home computer user without work needs opt for this over Mint, Ubuntu, Nobara, Arch, or whatever other distro somebody would insist I use? I don’t need Office.