> However, dealing with a Raspberry Pi is a hassle: plugging in the wires, booting the board, accessing the shell, etc
Probably just could have configured USB OTG, so its powered by the device you plug in, enable shell, then scripted this. Then you can configure mounts over ssh, commands over ssh, probably even mount the device.
That being said, I encourage people to try to understand their devices, read the kernel, etc. Its something I strive to continually improve. Lets fix our own shit :D.
The "Zero" variants of boards tend to allow power over the OTG port, so you can do some interesting things. (Of course, annoying if your powering-device resets power to it). Particularly, if I didn't suck at DTS/u-boot stuff, you could make a PiKVM for <$75. (You can get $10 1080p/60fps HDMI capture cards, you use the OTG port for kb/mouse).
Still, even if you had to external power it, those little boards have pins for power in. It would still be cheap/fairly elegant. And or a USB-C Hub should power it, and give you a place to put more non-host usb devices like a usb-eth dongle.
I would like to make one with some of the (Raspberry|Orange) Pi 3, but again, I've lost too much of my life to dts/u-boot stuff. BSP/mainline woes. It's just easier to be a software-only, cloud-machines-only guy and live minimally.
This article was exciting because I'd love to imagine cheap old laptops being salvagable as little KVM instances, but it seems like OTG/xDCI is just not a priority.
Probably just could have configured USB OTG, so its powered by the device you plug in, enable shell, then scripted this. Then you can configure mounts over ssh, commands over ssh, probably even mount the device.
That being said, I encourage people to try to understand their devices, read the kernel, etc. Its something I strive to continually improve. Lets fix our own shit :D.