BTW, I'm still waiting for the necessary gear. Due in early March, they say.
F*** supply chain disruptions!
Should be able to run it on a regular PC or Laptop, right? I don't think an RPi is a requirement.
You can certainly run it that way. BUT most of the node in a box distros are based on a RPi platform. So it will be a little more DYI I think... I think the next best thing would be one of the docker containers... not sure what's current in that regard.
I have run Bitcoin servers on Old desktops, old laptops, rack servers, VPS instances, Amazon VPSes, RPis, and even a Celeron based QNAP NAS via docker containers.
The RPi nodes are BY FAR the best choice for a home setup. They are low power, and easy to tuck somewhere next to your hub and always turned on. I think they are by far the best choice as long as you do not intend to do heavy duty business on them, in which case, if no $$$ was an object rack servers in a cage at some well endowed server warehouse... living in Dallas that would be easy... But I think even if I wanted to run a little commerce I could get pretty far using the Raspiblitz for the node and the BTCPay server before needing to upgrade.
I have been itching to build a Seed Signer and am also super sad that the Pi Zero W models seem to be impossible to get.
https://seedsigner.com/