I've done this but got tired of it eventually. I had an 8gb raspberry pi 4. I ran xfce4 under raspbian/raspberry pi OS with lightweight applications - luakit fo

I've done this but got tired of it eventually. I had an 8gb raspberry pi 4. I ran xfce4 under raspbian/raspberry pi OS with lightweight applications - luakit for a browser, claws mail for email, terminal, and a few background processes. I also casted to my TV from Gnomecast and, later, VLC. Coding was all done in micro with a few plugins enabled. Mostly it worked pretty well, but with too many tabs opened it would start to become cpu bound. Most electron apps were unusable too. For me it was a process of trying to spend less time online: the idea was I'd alter my behaviour by using a more limited medium. On that count it was a resounding success. I stopped because I missed games, so now I have an Udoo Bolt Gear, which was about £400 and is good enough for what I play without being wastefully over-specced. Same relative minimalism, but just a bit faster with more room to upgrade. I'd recommend trying both.