An x86 mini-PC is the sweet spot for a dedicated deputyOS box: hardware virtualisation, enough memory for real local models, and low enough power draw to leave running.

What to buy

Any small-form-factor machine with:

KVM support. Check grep -E 'vmx|svm' /proc/cpuinfo on a live system — empty output means no hardware acceleration and roughly an order of magnitude slowdown.
16 GB RAM minimum, 32 GB if you want to run larger local models.
NVMe storage. 256 GB is workable; model weights consume space quickly.

Refurbished business mini-PCs — Dell OptiPlex Micro, Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny, HP EliteDesk Mini — are usually the best value, often under $200 with 16 GB.

Install

Pick x86_64-mini-pc in the picker. The artefact is a raw image, so write it to the internal drive with a live USB:

xzcat deputyos-x86_64-mini-pc-rich.img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/nvme0n1 bs=4M status=progress conv=fsync

This overwrites the target disk. Check the device name twice.

Reboot, and the wizard is at http://deputyos.local.

Local models

With KVM and 16 GB you can comfortably run 7–8B parameter models at 4-bit quantization. 32 GB reaches 13–14B. See quantization for how the memory maths works.

A discrete GPU changes the picture entirely, but needs passthrough configured, which is a step up in complexity.

Power

Most mini-PCs idle at 6–15 W. At UK rates that is roughly £15–35 a year — cheaper than a single month of most SaaS assistant seats.