The Raspberry Pi isn't designed to be a full desktop replacement, and trying to use one as a full desktop replacement probably sounds like a bad idea. However, with a few upgrades, the right operating ...
One low-powered PC is all I need for a few days.
Before the Raspberry Pi came out, one cheap and easy way to get GPIO on a computer with a real operating system was to manipulate the pins on an old parallel port, then most commonly used for printers ...