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Have you tried SSH-ing into the system when it's in the bad state to see if you can diagnose the problem? You might be able to see if any displays are being detected at all in the problematic state. Part of me wonders, though is not certain, if the switch is somehow providing an inconsistent display name that confuses the system, though this is just a hunch - I have no idea what I'm talking about, to be frank.

Also, try switching TTYs and seeing if those show up.

Do attempts without Windows as the first step count e.g running Windows in QEMU on Wine on Linux?

Also, depending on which version of WSL you used, you might be breaking your own rule with WSL on VMs since WSL2 uses Hyper-V. You might also be breaking it again with QEMU.

What actually counts as "VM software"? Are you defining it as a hypervisor, or does, for instance, emulating Linux on ARM in an emulator of a RISC V system in an emulator of a PowerPC system break the rule. In addition, do you mean consecutive VM software steps, or could I for instance emulate an ARM CPU that supports hypervisors and run a VM software in there?

Honestly, play around with Xscreensaver - that's a fun collection. I've currently settled on the Apple II screensaver and have a custom Python script pip Star Trek scripts to it.

The Nakagin capsule tower one is awesome, too.

It depends on several things. Debian 13 is only a few months away, so 12 will already be a version behind. However, 12 will still receive security updates until mid-2028, so if it's just a stopgap, it shouldn't be too much trouble to install those security updates - they're specifically designed and tested not to break anything.

If you upgrade to a newer version, it will definitely be more than 300 packages, but they also try to be careful (no guarantees, though) to make sure an update from the immediately previous version doesn't bork everything. Thus, updates should still be pretty easy for a few years afterwards.

I could be completely out of my element here, but I almost wonder if an immutable distro would be a better idea in this case. If I'm getting this right, updating the base image under the root overlay a few years later shouldn't mess up too much. I could be completely wrong, as I don't use immutable distros; this is just my impression of how they work.

On my desktop, I wrote a Python script that pulls a random Star Trek: The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine script from a folder and prints it in STDOUT. I use this in the XScreenSaver Text Manipulation > Program option to turn Star Trek into a screen saver.

Currently, I use it with the Apple II screensaver, but in its original incarnation, I used the Star Wars intro screensaver. 😈

Sometimes, I Miles Edward O'Brien my VM GPU passthrough.

I'd like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as card games, is in fact, GNU/card games, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus card games. 😉

I thought about "decked out", though then people would say "look at my deck", potentially creating ambiguity between card games and spiffy desktops.

Zhush/zhoosh could work - I don't think the word is commonly used enough that it would get confusing.

From what I’ve seen of Asahi Linux’s progress on emulation, Windows games are running pretty darn well on Apple Silicon - there’s still work to be done, but a lot of recent, complicated stuff is playable.

This gives a bit of hope for gaming on other ARM platforms.

I have a Blu-ray drive, though my case doesn’t have 5.25” bays, so I just have the SATA cables come put the side.

The sole reason I have it is because once a couple years back, I wanted to watch the Star Trek: TNG Spanish dub, which was only available in the US on a Bluray, which I promptly borrowed from my local library.

I have used it a couple times after, though - once to burn a CD-R with TinyCore to boot on a Pentium II laptop, and once to backup a Bluray with a dub only available on that medium.

Agree. Codium goes brrrr, honestly.