monerobox VS minecore

Also available to the Monero community is: MoneroBox (Shop seems inactive, docker based Monero node on Pi4) XMR.sh Seths guides for a Monero node, fairly simplified via docker usage

A few years ago there was a guy who came up with the idea of selling Monero nodes, he set up the website and as far as I know had some success early on, but it seems the website is offline and the Github repository with the software is more or less abandoned. He was also interviewed on Monero Talk if you want more information about the guy and his business at the time.

If you go to their website, they still have very detailed walkthroughs of how to create a Monerobox node yourself. I believe the software is still maintained. Haven't checked in a while. https://monerobox.store/

You can either run your OS of choice on the mini computer along with Monerod, or use something like Monerobox or PiNode-XMR (I believe both of these have some level of Tor/I2P integration).

Have you tried contacting Monerobox via email? https://monerobox.store/ (bottom of the page)

I'll also add that there is an alternative project in the Monero-ecosystem called Monerobox. It used to be just for Rock64 but looks like it also supports Pi4 now. https://github.com/monero-ecosystem/monerobox

and https://github.com/monero-ecosystem/monerobox is by another contributor.

Another single board computer project is also in the Monero-ecosystem github that also runs on Rock64 https://github.com/monero-ecosystem/monerobox. The creator of this project used to sell them too (maybe still does).

MineCore! Now, with much easier Slax version: https://github.com/MineCoreLive/minecore

Free opinion (as system creator lol): use MineCore on Moneroocean 😉 https://github.com/MineCoreLive/minecore

I am trying to set up Minecore on bootable USB to try and do some Monero mining on an old laptop. I am able to create the USB and boot in to Tinycore but I can't seem to be able to enable persistence once i'm there.

I strongly suggest trying out the system I created exclusively for mining. You can run directly from a USB drive to test. Link: https://github.com/MineCoreLive/minecore

Basically, you can get a good idea of the performance of each processor (considering having at least 8gb of ram in any scenario to avoid bottlenecks) from the benckmark itself on xmrig.com, and/or by doing a basic search for the processor plus the term "hashrate" on Google. .. But, in order not to lose the habit (lol), I also recommend testing mining with this system: https://github.com/MineCoreLive/minecore (yes, i set it up), from a usb flash drive. Things like hugepages, msr, running as root are already set up. And all in a linux that uses a ridiculously small amount of system resources. It was set up to extract the largest possible hashate from any equipment (only need the processor, memory and internet connection), using MoneroOcean's xmrig and its ability to automatically change the algorithm to the most profitable currency at the moment.

A minimalist one... https://github.com/MineCoreLive/minecore