That's probably your best bet. There isn't an X-Windows environment and I looked at Wayland and that's unlikely. Pretty sure even something like LXQt would require X for openbox. If there is a desktop option that uses Qt and doesn't have much else in the way of requirements I would be willing to take a look at building it. Maybe someone else has another idea.

Originally posted by garbalen:

That's probably your best bet. There isn't an X-Windows environment and I looked at Wayland and that's unlikely. Pretty sure even something like LXQt would require X for openbox. If there is a desktop option that uses Qt and doesn't have much else in the way of requirements I would be willing to take a look at building it. Maybe someone else has another idea.

Pardon me if this is stupid and unfeasible:
I wonder if a modern project meant to be really light would be possible, something like Pico8 (which isnt a desktop, but is still built to be very open and all that stuff)
if pico 8 were possible, i wonder if Picotron would be too? that one's still in development though

They would need to release the source code for those. There's an opensource one called Picolove and needs LÖVE 0.10.2 which also has source available. Says it runs on mobile so it'll work with Arm processors like Steamlink. I might dig into it a little bit.

Originally posted by garbalen:

They would need to release the source code for those. There's an opensource one called Picolove and needs LÖVE 0.10.2 which also has source available. Says it runs on mobile so it'll work with Arm processors like Steamlink. I might dig into it a little bit.

Interesting,
seems like its made just to port Pico8 program files (not the OS itself) specifically to other systems?
that could still be very fun to use, keep me posted on this because I would love to try it!

Quick update to my findings:
Breadbox Ensemble actually works much better than Windows 3.1, and is generally much more advanced too
Now the next question I have is: is there any way to connect this to the internet? Breadbox has a browser, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get anything internet working using dosbox. Found out that ipx isnt supported in the version thats currently on the steamlink, so i tried using mTCP and some Packet Drivers for dos, but now i realize that wasnt going to work, as theres no way that the steamlink's ethernet port is compatible

There's tutorials out there. You would need some DOS utilities and Trumpet Winsock for the Windows side. I've messed with it in the past and it's interesting but mostly useless. The internet has changed enough that even with a newer real Windows 98se install, performing a Google search is pretty broken. https didn't exist back then and html and scripting changed so most sites won't even be accessible. I don't want to discourage, just temper expectations.

There's a decent site called "Getting Windows 3.1 connected to the internet (in DOSBox of course)" that should be helpful. Can just search for it, that part in the parentheses is part of the site name too.

Originally posted by garbalen:

There's tutorials out there. You would need some DOS utilities and Trumpet Winsock for the Windows side. I've messed with it in the past and it's interesting but mostly useless. The internet has changed enough that even with a newer real Windows 98se install, performing a Google search is pretty broken. https didn't exist back then and html and scripting changed so most sites won't even be accessible. I don't want to discourage, just temper expectations.

There's a decent site called "Getting Windows 3.1 connected to the internet (in DOSBox of course)" that should be helpful. Can just search for it, that part in the parentheses is part of the site name too.

Yeah I figured, though thankfully the website TheOldNet.com is around and makes browsing on older machines more tolerable