Get your free server (about 20 minutes, once)
- Get a free Gemini key. Open aistudio.google.com/apikey, click Create API key and copy it. It's used only by your server.
- Make a free Oracle Cloud account. Open signup.cloud.oracle.com.
- Oracle asks for a card to check you're a real person. Always Free resources are never charged.
- The home region can't be changed later - pick one near you.
- Create the server. In the Oracle console: ☰ → Compute → Instances → Create instance.
- Image: Change image → Canonical Ubuntu 24.04.
- Shape: Change shape → Ampere → VM.Standard.A1.Flex, 1 OCPU, 6 GB memory (marked Always Free-eligible). If Oracle says out of capacity, try another availability domain or try again later - or use VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro (slower, but works).
- SSH keys: choose Generate a key pair for me and Save private key - keep that file.
- The magic part: open Show advanced options → Management → Paste cloud-init script, and paste your startup script from below.
- Click Create. About 10 minutes later your server shows up as online under My server.
- Recommended: keep Oracle from reclaiming it. Oracle may stop Always Free servers that look idle for a week. Upgrading the account to Pay As You Go (☰ → Billing → Upgrade) stops that, and you are still not charged as long as you stay within the Always Free limits.