I don’t think they will prohibit side loading. This will cause serious issues to developers, and other professionals.

Like, I cannot use the X tool from Github, just because the Y developer refuses to publish it in an organized store?

This also applies to Windows. What prevents a user from downloading a Firefox fork that does not properly implement age verification?

Since it is impossible to implement on Linux, it may just be flagged as adult-only software.

But, there is still hope. What if Snaps and Flatpaks get properly flagged, allowing Ubuntu and/or Fedora to be legal?

Maybe you can

I had read about it on another thread, which was about using old smartphones as servers (they used Termux).

Those old lithium batteries, although sometimes seemingly healthy, can catch fire any time. Having them connected to the charger 24/7 is only making matters worse.

I wouldn’t trust the battery of old devices. I would probably buy a used UPS (without battery) and slap a new battery to it. This would cost more, but it would allow me to also connect other important devices to it - like the router and some lights.

I have a Wyse 5010. Be careful with your SSD plans. Mine had an mSATA SSD. Luckily, after removing the chassis of a SATA SSD, and only keeping the board, it could fit in there.

I started with Lubuntu, because of Minecraft. My PC was so slow that even Minecraft had improved performance, compared to it running on Win 10.

I mostly use it for accessing my servers when I leave home. So, no need for constantly updating it. I prefer to install the OS and forget about maintaining it on that device.

I have Debian on a laptop that I don’t use that much, and I use Nix package manager for managing the apps I use.

Running Arch was a nightmare, as I was updating once every 1-2 months and I was getting lots of conflicts.

Talking about desktops, there may be some issues with Radeon RX 7000.

If your hardware is that new, please stick to a distro with the newest kernel, like Fedora. There is a gaming oriented distro based on Fedora, called Bazzite, but I don’t know how big its community is, and how much it differs from vanilla Fedora.

There are also a lot of choices in the Arch family, like Garuda, Endeavour, and Manjaro. However, please stay away of those since you probably don’t have any experience on Linux. Manjaro is not really Arch, and can face issues with AUR packages, and the rest may break during updates.

Try the distro of choice in live mode. If you have enough RAM (like 16GB+), you can try to download Steam and some small game to see how it works. Keep in mind that, while in live mode, all files are stored in RAM.

I had tried ALVR in the past, on my Quest 2, but it sucked. A couple of months have passed and I should probably test again.