I run all of these or their equivalents in docker containers and have up to date versions of them. to me it makes management easy and the system clean from random files at random places. just one example: fortunately it does not need babysitting but i2p keeps its files in a very disorganized way inside the container, and I would never want to install it directly to the system (maybe unless the system would be dedicated to that)

I didn't mean to imply you didn't have priorities, just that a couple of them seemed to be conflicting. To me, what you described called more for reliability than cutting edge. I understand your concern with getting security updates expediently, but you can get those with less system stability risk using a more standard distro.

I haven't used a SUSE in a very long time, but as I recall Tumbleweed is an official product of theirs. I've not heard of Rhino until now, which gives me pause in considering it - let alone the fact it's not backed by a known significant team. There's nothing wrong with that, but when setting up a server like you're describing I'd rather it not require a significant amount of time at random once I've got it up and running, which is what can happen when relying upon less vetted software.

It's your choice, obviously. Rhino looks like it might make a nice desktop to play with, but I personally would really be hesitant to use it for a server because I just don't have the time to deal with problems at random - I've got enough of those already in my life. Your priorities are obviously different, and there's no denying the fact that even things going awry on your server can be a plus from a learning perspective. I would really be concerned with the project being abandoned since it's just a year old, tho.

Good luck whichever way you choose to go.