I set up an old thin client with Debian and lxqt to connect to a VM on Proxmox. Got the idea from an Apalrd’s Adventures video about VDI. It worked pretty well on a decent network, but it really suffered on high latency networks.

Keep an eye on lowendbox.com’s hosting offers. There’s some junk to wade through, but it sounds like exactly what you’re after.

I’m a huge Debian fan, but I’d say everyone should give openSUSE a shot. It’s a well thought out distro that doesn’t get enough love.