Lol because my main machine is a laptop that I'm pushing to the limit. I feel like I'll need more than a Pi, but I may be mistaken. They're almost cost prohibitive for the machine that you get. I was just curious if there were any other good single board options out there.

I run Mac so I already use unix. This isn't coming from being completely naive of computers, just out of hardware. The Pentium III was still a formidable processor the last time I put anything together.