Something like Browsh? It still uses firefox underneath the hood though

You mean a web browser in a terminal?

OpenBSD actually, but close

because we all know that routers have so much RAM that installing DNS, NTP, mounts, session, log management isn’t a problem? something doesn’t add up…

Yup, old Chromebooks are great. I got mine used for 180PLN (45USD), and I’m using it to connect to my computer at home via SSH to do some work there whenever I’m bored at school. The battery life is awesome and the laptop itself is great for whenever I want to test my code on it (different distro and lower specs). Though the firmware is a little weird because it doesn’t want to boot off the sd card, however I can imagine mounting /usr or something on it as a dirty hack over this.