Published May 13, 2026, 9:00 AM EDT Jeff's been involved in the IT industry since before the Internet and spent more than 20 years working in technical support, system administration, network administration, and consulting roles. He holds an undergraduate degree in English, a Master's degree in English with a focus on professional writing and editing, and another Master's degree in Computing & Information Systems. After teaching university English and computer science for a few years, Jeff launched his writing career . He's written for Macworld , Tom's Hardware , groovyPost , The Mac Observer , and more before beginning here at XDA. The best cheap Linux desktop you can buy right now might have an Apple logo on it. That sounds wrong at first, because the M1 Mac mini was designed to be a tightly integrated macOS desktop, not a playground for open-source operating systems . Yet used prices, Apple Silicon efficiency, and the steady work behind Asahi Linux have turned it into a very strange bargain.…