I really want to try mining an altcoin for the kicks. However the moment I see that it is more complicated than connecting a USB (for example you need a liva pc here) I tend to give up.
But your setup is by far the simplest I've seen so far. Good luck with the mining.
There are even coins you can mine with your cpu I don't recommend this because it will destroy your cpu.
but if its just for the kick and not planning on mining for a longer time you can always try it out.
However i recommend to buy special hardware for this because cpu mining is not really profitable.
I mine some cpu coins with one core on my GPU rigs, but they are intel low power processors with non-stock coolers.
I just used that pc because it is low power, it will work with any other pc including your desktop provided you have powered usb ports or a usb hub.
What range of coins can be mined with that
Pretty much any coin with the x11 algo such as Dash, Granite, Goldblocks, etc