Sad to say a few people have already set themselves on fire over this and it was quickly glossed over and forgotten, so even your extreme example isn't guaranteed to do anything.
You've had a couple good replies that answer your question, just thought this was worth pointing out.
You think someone stupid enough to make all the above mistakes would be savvy enough to build PKI and a RADIUS server? You're giving her too much credit.
Reading the article it sounds like it's both.
Protesters scuffle with police, try to break through a barricade. They’re chanting “shame,” “Ben Gvir is a terrorist” and “where were you at Sde Teiman,” the infamous prison where Palestinian prisoners were abused, at the cops
Samsung has been doing this for a long time with DeX an it's awesome. However it won't really be a thing for most people until Apple does it.
This is actually a very good comparison because restaurants use this argument all the time, except for wages:
"I can't make money running my restaurant if I have to pay a living wage to my servers, so you should pay them with tips. How else can we stay open?"
These business that can't operate profitably like any other business should fail.
Absolutely. It sounds ideal for something like that.
The issue is they sit in this odd place from a price perspective. I can get an N4000 based stick PC with 4GB RAM and eMMC storage for $140 CAD, or a vastly better performing N95 based mini PC with 8GB RAM, real SSD, and additional outputs for $50 more.
The stick PC really only makes sense if you need that form factor, or if you're on a really tight budget. The improvements for $50 are just too much to ignore.
Your wishlist sounds almost identical to mine. As frustrating as the limitations of streamers are, they are easy to use. HDMI CEC makes single remote setups possible, easy volume changes, input switching, etc. Apps are vetted so they "just work".
As for casting, most platforms support running Miracast or AirPlay receivers. Google is the stickler here that won't let you run a Google Cast receiver (or at least I haven't found one) and also doesn't implement Miracast on Pixel devices. It's such a shame because I vastly prefer casting the URL to the TV and letting it source the content than mirroring my phone all the time.
Yeah, those were on my radar as well. I haven't yet had a chance to look into what the Linux compatibility is like, but that sounds promising that you were able to do it.
The big downside I see is that while the power consumption is low, they're running a really old SoC, usually based on Intel N4000 (launched late 2017). Looking around it seems to have h.265 decode which is the most important one to look out for. It doesn't support AV1, but that's mostly streaming services and not that common (I think?). There may be other disadvantages I'm not thinking of at the moment.
What was the performance like for you?
I do have surround sound, but I wasn't aware of that being an issue with a PC solution. Have you encountered issues getting that to work?
All my current self-hosting is running off an N100 mini-PC. OPNsense, NginX, Home Assistant, Unifi Controller, Docker host, etc. They are fantastic, it just seems a bit overkill for sitting behind the TV and playing Plex/Jellyfin and the occasional web stream in a browser. There's really not much competition though as all the products below it offer a lot older processors that don't have very up to date HW decode.
If you're coming from Windows I recommend Fedora KDE Spin. If has a similar look and feel and is very up to date while remaining stable.