I was in a similar position earlier this year. Problem was most non smart TVs were business grade and very expensive. Ended up with a Samsung Smart TV but didn’t hook it up to the Internet. Fits my needs and remote is only ever used for changing HDMI devices. It boots up in about 10 seconds.

Hard style, you can find a bunch on SoundCloud

~ 5 watts when I ran everything on an old laptop

~ 40 on my new desktop server

Do you access your server in different places? Curious what the benefit is in remoting into your daily computer. Wouldn’t there be input lag? Can you watch videos through it?

Linux Mint with gnome desktop

Ubuntu Server for my self-hosted cloud service