Hi there, I’m interested in tinkering with Reticulum over the radio but I’m in a slightly unusual situation, maybe you could answer if it’s right for me or if I should wait until my circumstances change? And if it is right for me, recommend hardware?

My scenario:

Limitations:

• The most important point is that I experience chronic sensory overload which almost never abates, so I have little available mental bandwidth for “deep tinkering” … I can probably manage one big push to get something set up, but the bulk of the interaction thereafter (until I learn more) would need to be poking at it daily/weekly without having to make highly complex decisions, do a ton of research, make a lot of adjustments to hardware, etc.
• The second most important point is that my budget is very limited. I am very low income with a list of unfilled needs a mile long. So gear needs to be cheap. (As for why I would spend at all with this constraint, 1. such hobbies enhance my will to live and 2. sometimes skills like this lead to money.)

Circumstances:

• I live in a major US metro with a fairly strong tech nerd population.
• I have servers which are online 24/7 and could conceivably stay connected to a device for me and/or offload processing such that a cheaper device is usable.
• I run Linux on every computing device that matters in this context.
• An outdoor radio device would probably be best even if it’s a hacky setup, the house is full of RFI.
• I could maybe run a cable outside for power and connectivity. Otherwise, WiFi connectivity would be better than Bluetooth. Bluetooth would probably require me to get a Linux compatible dongle with external antenna.