I’m in the same boat. Sports discussions were the only reason I used Reddit originally

Saying I don’t consent to surgery isn’t the best thing to say. But gosh the the doctors face… priceless

It all depends on what your usecase is. If someone’s just starting out and wanting to do gpio stuff with a Linux os, yeah the pi may still be the best bet since it’s got such a large following and guides written. But if someone’s got more experience and just needs a cheap small form factor machine to run Linux and interact with some non mission critical gpios, a small nuc with a pico will give you a greater bang for the buck!

Hey man don’t give up! Well maybe give up on using the mac mini - i’ve never used one but if it’s going to be a pain to install linux go grab something cheap on eBay or FB Marketplace if that’s a thing in your area. I recently bought a cheap dell optiplex (I think?) on marketplace for like, ~$25? Not sure what your use case is, but if you don’t need a super fast nas, most cheap desktop machines on your local buy/swap community purchase place will do the job just fine. Don’t let the mac mini be what holds ya back!