As soon as you share the into with a potential employer that it is you, you lose the privacy. You have to assume it's publicly known. It's not worth the effort.
If you do your research everyone knows you spend most of your day researching anyway. At least your supervisor will know who you are. You will want to talk to others and tell them "I'm currently research xy. I wrote this idea, what do you think about it?" Etc.
You should do the phd because you are intrested in the topic, not to gain some degree.
You can write your good papers as an anonymuous person. If they are very good, people would cite you. People will want to invite you.
As a user I wouldn't use debian. Server yes, workstation, no.