I thought this was the way of doing it. It’s exactly what we’ve done too.

I had a sheevaplug or something like that (I can’t remember the exact name, but it was around 2010). That thing was hot and it actually stopped too much times. Then the raspberry pi 1 (the original). Too slow. I’ve upgraded to a Raspberry Pi 3, that I used a couple of times as a desktop when my laptop broke. That wasn’t fun, it was slow too. During COVID I sold that and bought a Pi 4 from an authorized seller, so it was the official price. I bought an SSD and an Argon One case. The fan broke after a few month of usage, so I sold the whole thing. Finally I went to eBay and bought a Dell Optiplex Micro. That thing is the best. Used as a desktop, also as a server. It’s fast, smallish (not that small as a RPi, but it’s close. It can go to a backpack), and upgradable. It can have two monitors, two ram sticks, an SSD Nvme and also an SSD SATA. It’s a little beast.

Fish shell. Out of the box it autocompletes taking into account in which directory you are. It’s like bash Ctrl+r but without actually invoking it before. Really ergonomic.

Yes. I used Boost until the blackout (June 12th or something like that). That date I uninstalled it and didn’t log in anymore. Then I waited until June 30th just to see if they’ve changed their plan. They didn’t, so I replaced all my comments and then I deleted my account. From that date I created an account first on KBin but I didn’t like that they didn’t show which server the threads were actually on, so I migrated to Lemmy world with wefwef. So far, really happy with the experience.

Just to reinforce what all the thread is saying: used Thinkpad in ebay. I would search for a x270/x280/t470/t480. This depends in screen size.

Why these models? They are the last ones that allow you ti upgrade your RAM, so when you have a bit more money you can upgrade. Also, these are old but not ancient, so they can still be relevant for some time.

On the other hand, if you have more budget, the best Linux laptops are the frame.work, but they’re expensive, although they’re reparable and upgradable, so I guess that depends on how you see it.

Finally, Kali is not a daily use distro. If you have time to waste (or invest) then you can go hardcore and straight to Arch Linux. If you want to have an easier journey you can start with PopOs!

Good luck on your journey!!