I would also recommend openSUSE Tumbleweed. I’m usually a Debian/Debian-based person but I’ve been running Tumbleweed on my desktop for a few years now and it’s been great.

It has a few peculiarities like any distro but it’s been very stable, with few issues even with things like Nvidia drivers. Docs and community seem good too.

There are 4 bay units that would fit on a 10” inch shelf. I’ve seen some DIY projects too.

Using SFF/mini PCs is also popular, there are models that can take multiple SATA/NVMe drives

There are few if any 10” UPS units available anyway so weight is less of a worry. It’s one of the biggest weaknesses of the 10” system currently.

Power costs vary a lot around the world, depending on where OP lives every little saving can help.

I have an X220 with an i5-2520M, I don’t use it for gaming but I have briefly played Half-Life 2 with it and it was comfortably playable.

So I would say mid-2000s titles and before will be fine. It really depends o the age of the Thinkpad you want is, and the age of the games you want to play.

Seems a pointless endeavour. The open and enterprise sides are so deeply linked, it makes sense that they share a brand.

Separating them only weakens the broader SUSE ecosystem.

Compiz won over so many new users back then. Wobbly windows and desktop cubes may not have been super practical, but they sure looked impressive.