You probably could, but you’d have the taste of citric acid (which is not awful) and baking soda in the water. The Spärkel has the water that activates the reaction in a separate chamber so they don’t wind up in your drink. You need to change that water every four or five times you use it.
I’m curious, do you recall what hardware issue you had? I’ve been using Fedora-based Aurora on my 13 and 16.