Linux on the desktop?

[classicdrogn]

Specifically, I'd recommend either waiting until April's Ubuntu release if you're going to use it, which will be a Long Terms Service version that gets continuing patches for issues that show up for... eight years, I think? 12.04 is just now being end-of-life'd anyway, while 18.04 is the currently available LTS since they're released every other year. Most of the variant flavors of Ubuntu drop almost simultaneously as well since the code base is by definition open. "End of life" isn't the death knell it might be considered for 'doze either (especially 'Doze8+ with their active MS-push system management schemes) though there are usually solid enough improvements to want to upgrade before it happens, and not much if any breakages from doing so.

As for the Raspberry Pi, I've seen a couple of uPotatoes do a "one week with a raspberry pi" video where they try using one exclusively, the general feeling was that it's doable if you're not a hard core video or graphics user but feels a little restrictive. I'm used to making do with under-powered old machines (hence why I could quickly give a low-spec answer) but frequently lament that there's not enough computer inside my computer, so again, I'd say try to get something that would be a decent machine for your purposes by current (or maybe a year or two ago, depending on how much of a price difference it makes) standards and enjoy being able to continue to use it into the future, with priority on RAM over number or speed of CPU cores as such.

Star Ranger, what is there to even configure with a Switch? Just memory card size, isn't it? I don't have one (and numb-thumb has severely impacted my physical ability to spend long periods gaming anyway) so I probably couldn't help in any case.