I recently ran across SpiralLinux - GitHub page, and found the concept of how the maintainer is packaging it very cool.
The maintainer has been maintaining Gecko Linux for a while now - it has the same underlying concept.
The gist is - you're basically installing Debian, but with customizations that the maintainer(s) thought would be very helpful. Basically - better out of the box experience for new users, but also less work to do even for experienced users, and it comes with different download flavors - Gnome, Plasma, XFCE, Mate, etc.
Bit more detail by the maintainer in this Reddit comment:
Exactly. It's like I went over to your house and installed and configured Debian on your computer, and then you kicked me out of your house as soon as I finished. ;-) The installed system no longer has any connection whatsoever with me or the SpiralLinux project, which is good because you wouldn't want your entire system to depend on a random single developer maintaining it.
(original Reddit comment has more details).
I thought this was pretty cool. I'm still trying to read up online on trying to find how the package lists are maintained, etc., and I might be interested in contributing if I'm able to in the future.
Just wanted to share!
I completely missed the Wiki 🤦♂️. Sorry for the redundant questions.
I am actually not that much concerned with general OS updates - as you say, those systems are not heavily used and more or less isolated. BUT they are still used for web browsing. So the browser should be patched as good as possible.
I'll give SpiralLinux a try in a VM to get a feeling for it. Maybe paired with the automatic update daemon I could then forget about the PC(s) in question for the next few years until a major version change is necessary (which then hopefully can be done remote as per your Wiki page).
Another option might be to uninstall the DEB version of Firefox and install a browser from Flathub, and configure Gnome Software or KDE Discover to automatically download and install updates for Flatpaks.
Uh, clever idea. Thanks!