I like dietpi. It makes a bunch of stuff way easier to manage and deal with.

Even once you know cli commands, it’s faster and easier to manage some things like services from their cli-gui.

Not sure for the laptop. My phone can only connect to one VPN at a time.

I use NordVPN because they’re built-in mesh feature is essentially VPN tunnel and that can run while you’re connected to their VPN.

Try NetBird instead of Tail/headscale. All in one app.

Wishful thinking.