Mesa Ethernet / QtPlasmaC retrofit experience — lessons from a marginal mini PC

Choosing a computer for LinuxCNC is always a lottery and it is impossible to give any universal advice.
A computer that works great for you may not work for me with my version of Linux, my version of kernel and my version of LinuxCNC...
For example, I use AMD computers (A10 and Ryzen), also with Realtec NIC and MESA. I have read several times on this forum that they do not and will not work with LinuxCNC and especially MESA, but they work flawlessly and I am very happy with them.
Even if you gave a specific computer model, motherboard revision, operating system type, kernel version, LinuxCNC version, it would make some sense, but tomorrow some developer will change something and something may stop working...