cloudblock VS DietPi

https://github.com/chadgeary/cloudblock Another one which you can use but with less work

2.) Cloudblock I use OCI's free tier.

It looks like you choose a DNS over HTTPS provider, and it defaults to OpenDNS.

/u/chadgeary made cloudblock which was super easy to setup with his tutorials

https://github.com/chadgeary/cloudblock pihole/wireguard

I’d recommend Oracle, as they have a free tier that should cover your use case. If your interested check out Step-by-step cloud deployment - Wireguard VPN

if you want to run it in the cloud, for free, and not rely on anything at home, use cloudblock and run it on oracle cloud infra, they have a forever free tier that i have been using for years.

https://github.com/chadgeary/cloudblock/ or https://github.com/chadgeary/cloudoffice/ are both fun projects

In case you're feeling ambitious, you can take a look at this project which is designed to make it easy to deploy your own ad-blocking VPN on a cloud server. Watch one of the step-by-step videos linked to on that page (like this one for Oracle Cloud) to see if it's something you'd feel comfortable setting up.

DietPi is a lightweight Debian based Linux distribution for SBCs and server systems, with the option to install desktop environments, too. It ships as minimal image but allows to install complete and ready-to-use software stacks with a set of console based shell dialogs and scripts.

The source code is hosted on GitHub: https://github.com/MichaIng/DietPi

That's a good point, but the array of devices supported by the DietPi team is extensive: https://dietpi.com/

Before someone starts the usual yadda yadda about the RPi biger community, the OS not having long time support etc. I would repeat one more time: do not rely on board vendor supplied images; this is valid for pretty much all boards. Just go to Armbian or DietPi pages and you'll almost certainly find one or more images that work on your board and forums to discuss about them with very knowledgeable people.

https://www.armbian.com/download/

https://dietpi.com/#download

Those projects are well worth a contribution, as they don't have a giant like Broadcom behind them.

> bananapi do a lot of boards but their software story has been a bit poor

This is quite common with other board manufacturers too. I'd rather suggest to ignore completely their cobbled together distros, often also tainted by proprietary modifications, that become unmaintained in a few years, and see if they're among the many supported by Armbian or DietPi.

https://www.armbian.com/download/

https://dietpi.com/#download

The full release notes can be found at: https://dietpi.com/docs/releases/v8_25/

RPi OS = diet pi https://dietpi.com/ - initial config via text file - SDcard burning out partially mitigated as writes log files to ram then flushes to SDcard reducing write cycles

You could also try very minimalistic distros like TwisterUI or DietPi which are most known for their use in the RasprebbyPi / SBC computers but which also have editions for desktop / laptop.