I decided the same thing, for nearly the same reason. An XBox costs nearly as much as the HP gamer I bought, complete with Win11. I use it as a game console, but it’s available if I decide to add a Linux dual-boot. I probably won’t, but it’s there.
I’d rather use my self-modified HP SFF as a monitor stand and to run three linux distros. They’ll run a few Steam games. I loaded Lutris, but I can’t figure out how to make it work.
Have you tried Lakka?
We’re only human, after all
I worked for an HP reseller and I always loved those HP SFF computers. Such a handy form factor. Pretty tight for some of today’s high power CPUs let alone GPUs. I saw a neat, but kind of expensive option recently.
https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-nucxi5-nucxi7
It’s basically a laptop without any battery. Pretty sexy looking and they say it games pretty well too.
There is a plan for 2023 expenses that includes a new motherboard, processor and graphics card. Until then I can’t upgrade to Win11. Of course, after that I could just purchase another SSD for my Ubuntu distro and keep the OS’s on separate drives - great idea 
.
My present situation is a bit strange because the MB wants the OS to be on one SATA drive only but not on any of the 4 free slots committed to pcie drives.
-Believe me, I’ve tried, been sitting with my head inside that MIDI tower changing bytes, cards, bits and whatsits. Reading manuals, hacking and invented curses that have increased the temperatures in helheim by quite a few degrees.
-It’s been a steep learning curve for a placid elderly gentleman spoiled by Macintosh who by own decision dragged himself out of contentedness and stumbled into the deep end of the pool. But, it has to be said, I like it. It’s interesting, far from boring and help keep them grey windings busy through these cold, hard, dark winter months.
Attractive package, to be sure. Price tag is not so attractive, but understandable. I’ll stay with the old SFF box. They have integrated Intel graphics and several drive bays, as well as plenty of USB ports for my extra hdd. I’ll watch for one that’s a couple of generations newer so I can find a CPU that’s more up to date and still compact. Check out the tiny boxes that Geekom is is selling–they’re really attractive.
Loaded it on a USB. Rather like Arch or Void–totally non-intuitive. I’ll stick with Steam unless somebody can tell me what Lutris does.
Sounds like my machine!!! My mobo cannot be upgraded to W11 either, but by using my Amazon points, I have the parts on the way to build my main machine to run W11. I cannot live with just running Linux, I have to have Windows, for my main machine. I did hack W11 on this machine awhile back, and although W11 ran, their were just to many issues. So that only leaves buying a new machine or rebuilding the one I have. I may run Linux, but it will only be in a VM.
I think whether a drive will boot depends firstly on whether it appears in the bios boot devices list.
If it is in the list but does not boot, then you have to put a bootloader on the drive.
If it has a bootloader and still will not boot, then you have to fix the bootloader configuration
Have a look at this topic
Regards
Neville
Can you run W11 in a VM? That might hide the issues.
Tried loading Linux on a Dell notebook with an eMMC drive. The distro wouldn’t even recognize it as a drive, so no go on the install. Anyway, it was barely 32G, just enough to run Win11. Couldn’t even download updates. Gave it to the grandkids to play with.
Not much you can do with any Windows in a VM.
I have a friend who runs windows in VMware. I think he only has W10.
Yeah, emmc drives are too new (like my graphics card)
Linux does not have the drivers yet.
Wait another 2 years, or try a bleeding edge distro like Arch or Void
Never said you could not run Windows in a VM, it just doesn’t work like Linux in a VM.
Yes my limited VM experience is that nothing works fully. It is a restricted environment and you have to go to enormous lengths to communicate with the outside world.
I think VMware is different. It is a whole OS with builtin VM.
I used the Vmware Player years ago when I first started using VM’s. Vmware is more closed and more proprietary than Oracle VirtualBox. It is also more about pre-built VM’s and not many to chose from, it did run Ubuntu well.
Yes, I dont think VMware qualifies as FOSS.
Just saw this on the web.
[
](Microsoft Flight Simulator 40th Anniversary Edition on Steam)
Pretty much rules out any of my PC’s.