The whole idea was that I wanted it to be a simple flick of the switch, or turn of a knob, to play some music. The “smart” stuff and apps have more friction than I’d like when I just want some background noise. The random lockups and reboot issues created a different kind of friction.
A few old G4 Mac minis just came back into my possession. Maybe I’ll just use one of those. My main issue there is memories of old iTunes getting caught in a loop when shuffling. Do it do long and it starts to essentially play the same playlist it generated on repeat. But maybe for this I won’t care, that’s how most radio stations seem to operate anyway, and I’d have the power to force it to mix things up.
Not sure what went wrong with the beelink; the os shouldn't have locked by by itself, too.
I've had great luck with Mac minis over the years. I've had many of them. I'll probably go that route in the future if needed.
I know there are better quality x86 options out there, but the prices go up fast, and I find them hard to justify for what I'd be doing with it. The Mac is really price competitive, which makes it even harder to justify those other options.