Debian

For infrastructure, predictability is usually more valuable than novelty. Debian provides explicit package management, standard configuration files, a large archive, security support, and an upgrade path that can be tested and understood.

This does not mean that Debian eliminates administrative work. Stable software can still be misconfigured, exposed unnecessarily, or left unmonitored. The advantage is a solid base on which operational discipline remains possible.

My main Debian systems include a Lenovo ThinkPad X260 and a Lenovo ThinkCentre M710s. The laptop is a development and writing environment built around Emacs, Org mode, Python, Git, and the i3 window manager. The M710s provides storage, this static website, and selected personal services.

The server is kept deliberately understandable. Public web serving, private administration, storage, and other services have distinct roles and exposure rules. Tailscale provides a private administration path, while UFW restricts host-level access.

The server contributes bandwidth to the distribution of official Debian installation images through BitTorrent. At present, it seeds selected AMD64 network-installer and DVD images obtained from the Debian Project.

BitTorrent is well suited to this task: participants share the distribution load, files are content-verified, and no unofficial modification of the images is required. Users should still obtain release information and verification instructions from the official Debian documentation.

A partial package mirror is being considered for the current stable AMD64 distribution, including main, contrib, non-free-firmware, and security updates.

Before deployment, the design must answer several practical questions:

• which suites and architectures are genuinely required;
• how much storage and bandwidth growth to expect;
• how updates are performed atomically;
• how package metadata and signatures are verified;
• whether the mirror has enough users to justify its maintenance cost;
• how it remains isolated from the main website.

Until those points are resolved and documented, it remains a planned service rather than an advertised one.

Future Debian pages will cover tasks I have carried out and can verify on real systems, including:

• securing SSH with Tailscale and UFW;
• inspecting listening services and authentication logs;
• making services survive a reboot with systemd;
• checking mounts, HTTPS, and service health after maintenance;
• running Kiwix and Taskchampion services;
• publishing an Org mode website with Emacs;
• using Salsa for Debian-oriented Git collaboration and contributions;
• auditing a small personal server without pretending it is a data centre.