My 2008 HP desktop still works.

It was delivered with MS Vista. As you may imagine, the PC suffered endless nights before it could be usable. Eventually I was free to install Linux but Vista had already taken its toll on this PC.

OpenSUSE breathed a new life, until I decided (mostly out of prejudice) to make a fresh Slackware 14.0 installation. I think that Slackware has better documentation and it's simplicity gives it the edge, but OpenSUSE was not bad at all.

In the mean time I was forced to replace the CPU, the hard disk, and one memory card. I suspect a fault motherboard (as the battery drains quickly) and now the graphics card is starting to play up. The performance is surprisingly quick even when running KDE desktop. I am thinking for a replacement and I am investigating ARM architecture.

If possible I would like to use KDE, or at least some of the KDE apps. At least I would need a good bittorrent application like ktorrent. I would need at least 1TB of storage.

I need Chrome (or Chromium) as I am casting videos via a Chromecast device. My RPi Model B is too slow for me and I suspect that compiling Chromium is not a feasible option.

A desktop Chromebook might be a good solution, but I prefer Linux, as I will need to set-up an SSH and VPN server and I cherish my privacy :-). I prefer Slackware. Installing Linux on Chromebook is still an option but I am not sure how supported that would be. I would prefer a supported device.

I would also need Libreoffice.

I would welcome any suggestion for a Slackware-supported ARM device.

Chris

The RPi2 is probably the best bargain you can get right now for a Linux based ARM desktop system.
If you want to give my IFC6410 a go I can sell it to you for a bargain price

Do you really need libreoffice ? or can you get by with calligra ?

BTW Slackware ARM 14.0 is out of support now .... you should consider using 14.1.

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My HP PC is an x86 architecture and it runs on Slackware32 V14.0, while I have Slackware-arm V14.1 on my RPi.

Well if you are already running Slackware ARM on a RPi you should try installing KDE it's amongst the distributed packages ... and possibly test if you can use calligra instead of libreoffice. If all works fine you might like to get about 5 times the performance by upgrading to RPi2 at a very reasonable price.
If a sata drive is mandatory for you I can swap my IFC6410 with a RPi2 if you want ... or sell it to you for something that will allow me to buy an extra RPi2.
Maybe I should not be offering swaps in this section .... well there are heaps of other options with a sata port (banana pi, A20-OLinuXino-LIME, odroid, Cubietruck, matrix minipc ...) just google around for an option.

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XFCE takes about 3 minutes to start on my RPi, so even with about 30s, XFCE would be testing my short fuse.

A SATA drive is not needed. I can install an external USB drive.

I am not interested in swapping, but thanks for the suggestions. I am still in time to study my options until the desktop PC dies.

The Gb of ram on the RPi2 will probably aid starting XFCE faster then 30 seconds .... but I can't confirm that as I've never used any GUI on my RPi2, and on the systems where I do run a GIU it's generally something ultra light like fluxbox. You should give fluxbox a try as just by having kde stuff installed, with the required libs, will allow you to use kde applications.

If you don't need SATA you might even consider a tablet that is known good for generic linux distro ... some have mini hdmi output

There's one other thing you might want to consider: why do you want an ARM based desktop ?
Unless you're going to leave your desktop system on all the time should power consumption size and quietness be privileged and performance penalized ?
If your answer to that is "yes surely" then an ARM desktop might be what you want. If it's anything but "yes surely" you might consider x86 mini, nano or pico-itx system (or something like an intel NUC) ... they can be small and silent but have much better performance then an ARM machine at the cost of using about 10 times the power of an ARM machine. But unless you leave it on all the time the power thing might not be an issue.

Power consumption is an important issue for me, although it is not the only factor in the consideration list. Since I have now reached the wrong side of the forties, the noise level is also critical. It is one reason I love my RPi; it is completely silent.

I had a good look at the list and the NUC is interesting, but I think that I would prefer the Chromebit or the Intel Compute Stick. The latter comes with a ventilator but as it is x86 architecture I would have less app compatibility issues.

Well lintel has gotten a lot better on the power thing:
I recently got an Acer Aspire ES1-111m with a dual core 2.1Ghz celeron in it and a 45 Wh battery. While running on powersave cpufreq governor the battery will last 5+ hours. Than means that on average the netbook is using 9 watts including the display lighting which is pretty impressive for an x86_64 celeron. And it is completely silent as it has 32Gb eMMC internal mass storage and no fan.

It did take a little effort to figure out how to install linux in it with uefi bios and mandatory secure boot + some issues with the wifi card and bluetooth .... but nothing like the amount of research I hadto to do when I first installed Slackware ARM on my AC100.

Oh I forgot to mention ... the Es1-111m also has:
1Gb ethernet port,
2 usb ports (1 usb2 and 1 usb3),
hdmi port,
SD card slot

It is a little bigger then the AC100 ... but that's a + for me now because I'm beginning to see things blury when close as I get older