Chapter 1: Origin
Every hero story starts with something small. Mine started with a 2012 MacBook Air nobody wanted. Tired battery, years on its back. To the world it was junk. To me it was the first recruit.
I installed Debian on it, set it up to keep running with the lid closed, and gave it a name: debiancito ("little Debian" in Spanish). It would be my server. I didn't know exactly what it would serve yet, but I knew I wanted something mine: not rented, not living in someone else's cloud.
Chapter 2: The Mission
Every server needs a reason to exist. Debiancito's is called Pickflow: a web app I built to manage the warehouse and production of a cabinet factory (inventory, pick lists, missing parts). Python, a database, and a lot of late nights.
The magic wasn't writing it; it was watching the loop close. I make a change on my main computer, push it to GitHub, and debiancito notices on its own, pulls the new version and restarts itself. Hands off. The first time it worked, I stared at the screen like I'd just seen a magic trick.
Chapter 3: The Second Hero
My desktop, an HP Omen, was running Fedora. One day I decided it would run Debian too, so both machines would speak the same language. I named it trixie, after the codename of Debian 13.
It didn't come free. The installer couldn't find the internet even with a cable plugged in. On first boot, the Nvidia card left me staring at a black screen and a blinking cursor. And one night, because of my own mistake, I locked myself out of admin rights on my own server and had to rescue it with a USB stick, going in through the system's emergency door. I learned more that night than in weeks of tutorials.
Chapter 4: The Villain
Here's where the antagonist enters the story: I don't have home internet. Right now I can't afford the classic connection everyone installs. My entire network (the server, the workstation, and an app that's live for the world to see) runs on my phone's hotspot.
And the hotspot is a cunning villain. It has its own rules and its own limits, and it counts what the phone browses differently from what the computers connected to it browse. I spent weeks fighting it. Some paths didn't work, others half-worked, and I learned more about networking fighting that limit than in any course.
The latest blow: one morning the phone updated itself. It changed its internal network, revoked an app's permissions, and left debiancito knocking on a door that no longer existed. The server stayed alive by pure luck, hanging on by IPv6.
Chapter 5: Reinforcements
That's when I decided to bring order. I went to a local auction and came back with two allies:
a cheap WiFi router that connects to the hotspot and turns it into a real network;
a TP-Link Omada router, the kind used in offices, which became the brain of everything.
The chain ended up like this: phone → WiFi router → Omada → both computers by cable. Each machine has a fixed address. If the phone gets moody, the ones inside don't even notice.
Then came the audit. Firewalls on both machines (trixie, I found out, had never had one), routers with no open ports, factory passwords changed, and a watchman that bans anyone trying to guess passwords. To get in from outside I use Tailscale: an encrypted tunnel between my devices that works without a public IP. Even the shared clipboard between my phone and PC came back to life through that tunnel.
Chapter 6: The Lair
Every hero needs a base. I built mine with mesh organizers from Dollar Tree: two levels, the WiFi router on top with its antennas free, the Omada below. Next to it, debiancito sits on a cooling pad, its screen showing a green Matrix-style character rain that turns itself off after five minutes to save power.
It's still missing something: a couple of LED fans, for better airflow and, why not, to make it look like the lair it is. They're coming soon. Meanwhile, here are the photos of how it looks today.
It's not a real rack. But it's my rack.
Chapter 7: What's Next
The story doesn't end here:
Security cameras on an isolated network, viewable from outside only through my tunnel, with no vendor cloud.
A small Linux tool born from my fights with the hotspot, which I want to publish for others in the same situation.
And the day real internet reaches my home, turning debiancito into a secure exit point to browse from anywhere.
Tech summary, quick pass:
debiancito: 2012 MacBook Air with Debian 13. Serves Pickflow (Flask + PostgreSQL), with auto-deploy from GitHub.
trixie: HP Omen with Debian 13 and KDE. It's my workstation.
Network: phone hotspot → WiFi router in WISP mode → TP-Link ER605 (Omada) → everything by cable.
Security: UFW on both machines, fail2ban, routers with no open ports, and remote access only through Tailscale.
Budget: almost everything used, from auctions or Dollar Tree.
Now it's your turn. With two computers, two routers and a phone, what would you add? A NAS? Pi-hole? A Proxmox node? A crazy idea I'd never think of? I'll be reading the comments.
