You might be able to use something like distrobox instead of a full VM. That would at least put it in a container that you could either run from an encrypted partition or something.
Different users would be the “simple” way you’d normally do something like this under Linux. But if your regular users have sudo access, you can’t really lock anything down.
I don’t know if it would give you as much hard drive space as you want, but I got an Odroid HC4 a while ago and it’s been great. One of the very few SBCs with two SATA slots ready to go.
I’ve used both, been daily driving Cachy for a year or two now. CachyOS is a bit easier than plain Arch, in my opinion. I’ve been using Octopi (a gui tool that fronts the package manager) because I never fully got the hang of pacman yet. And I use Btrfs Assistant (another gui tool) instead of configuring snapper from the CLI.
Overall, it’s more involved than something likr Ubuntu or Debian, but it feels manageable.
Buco seems to be having a good time. 9/10, unsure how Eaton feels.
Just cleaned mine up a bit recently!
PC on the left, RPi for simple stuff and an Odroid HC4 as my media and backup server.
Not pictured: another RPi dedicated to HomeAssistant, a magic mirror, and networking stuff.
Also not pictured: my workbench tools on the upper shelves, which have not been tidied recently.
As far as Arch-based distros go, CachyOS has a lot of helper tools included, and a lot of GUI programs. That’s probably why people consider it beginner-friendly.
I wouldn’t really consider CachyOS as a beginner distro. It’s probably the most accessible for anyone looking for something highly optimized, but there are plenty of others that are easier to set up and use.
Been daily driving Cachy for a couple years now, and I love it. It’s not for everyone, though.
How far apart are the TVs?
If it’s cheaper and/or easier to run ethernet between the TVs, you can use HDMI-over-ethernet extenders (like this one). Fewer PCs/SBCs to manage that way.
I picked up an odroid HC4 a while ago, and it’s been great. Only has two slots, though. I have it set up to do periodic backups to a cloud storage service, so I feel pretty good about it overall.
As long as you don’t use a DE on it, a pi3 is great for experimenting with server software. I still use my 3b for plenty of things.
I’ve been daily driving CachyOS for a while now. It’s fast, and I like the rolling release model. It pretty much worked with my 4070 out of the box I believe, I don’t think I had to do anything special there. I started with Cinnamon as my DE, but eventually moved to Gnome (Cinnamon still uses X11 I believe, and there were things that just worked better with Wayland, and with a handful of extensions, I can get it to look the way I like).
That being said, I wouldn’t recommend it to people less comfortable with Linux. CachyOS has its own repositories (which is the whole idea, the software is compiled specifically for more modern hardware), but it can sometimes be confusing when choosing packages to install. The wiki is pretty helpful though, especially with getting games up and running.
I’ve used Armbian and DietPi. Currently running a magic mirror on a Rock64 and a NAS on an ODROID HC4. Of the two OSes, I think I’d recommend Armbian. Skip installing a DE and just get a basic X session with a simple web browser.
Note that MagicMirror is web based, so the setup steps for putting up a web browser would be similar.
If you want something more capable that will handle more experimentation, go for the mini PC. If you know exactly what you want to host and you want to prioritize low power consumption, the pi might be a better choice.
Can confirm, I have an EQ12 I’m using as an HTPC. Performance is great and sound is minimal (aside from coming out of suspend, the fans fire up for a moment).
If you’re not sure who the Linux enthusiast is in your circle, it’s you.
Many DNS providers offer privacy options. They’ll put their own information in the WHOIS database and forward relevant stuff to you.
Just put it on a USB stick. No install, no commitment. Baby steps.
I’ve got Jellyfin running on an odroid, and it’s pretty solid.
Not sure if you’re the type to need access to your home network while away, but I also use a pi zero as my “login gateway”–I forward just port 22 to it from the WAN, and I have ssh set up to only allow logins with a key. I can set up dynamic port forwarding and tunnel through to my home network, and that pi zero has no other function (so even if I screw something else up on another server, I can still access my network).
Typically a web browser or dedicated app, but it’s open source so there are options. You might be able to stream directly with VLC, not sure.
Linux runs on almost anything these days. I’ve installed Mint on Lenovos, Dells, and HPs without issue (even media keys all worked out of the box). As others have suggested, I’d probably look into used business workstations from the last five years to ensure you’ll get a solid five to ten years out of it.