Maybe you could help us understand what the Raspberry Pi isn't addressing for you? I run debian on mine, can SSH into it easily over ethernet, am running a webserver on it, and could put external storage on it should I want. And it only cost me $35!

Edit: I should point out that I'm doing all of this from my backpack, and that this was incredibly straightforward to set up with off the shelf parts. Honestly, it feels more or less like any other debian system I've worked with.