Wow, all that with an esp32. No fancy hardware needed.

Awwwwww shucks.

What happens if my distro is never mentioned in these run-downs? What does that say about me?

This is the answer here. If OP has any techy friends they should tell them. I have a dozen HDDs and SSDs and RAM of varying sizes lying around. Most of them even work.

I tend to canabalize parts as computers pass through my hands. I frequently upgrade family member’s laptops for them. They buy the parts and I provide the labor of cloning windows and putting in the parts. Often the brand new (but smaller) ram/ssd are unwanted.