Getting tired of my current Intel NUC suffering graphics glitches and once in a while locking the screen requiring a couple of Ctrl-Alt-Backspaces to kill the X server (and losing my session). Probably some bug in the X drivers for the Intel video hardware. So I will move my desktop to this Chromebox.

To that end I bought a 250 GB SSD in M.2 2242 form factor. This is quite a short card, only 42 mm long as the form factor indicates. That's the largest I could easily get but should be adequate for desktop use as most of my files are on a workhorse machine. I also bought a 2x8GB kit to bring the RAM up to 16GB, the max supported. With the i7 CPU this is going to be a powerful machine for the small size. Pretty good outcome for rescued hardware.

Installed openSUSE Leap 15.2 on it last night and currently burning in.

A few weeks later: Burn in finished, all stable so I have moved my desktop to this Chromebox. Among other things I also had to transfer the udev rules for various USB devices like the Arduino Uno, STlink dongle, and so forth. Feels smooth and zippy. 😀👍