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!
Hi everyone, SpiralLinux creator here. Another thing that motivated the creation of this set of spins is the diversity of hardware, even in my own machines. I personally don't like having to switch to a completely different distro for a specific computer just because of hardware support issues. Some devices might need a newer kernel for certain components to work, whereas other hardware works better with the older kernel from Debian Stable. So SpiralLinux offers a hybrid approach, Debian Stable base system with the Debian Stable kernel included on the live ISO, but the much newer kernel version from Debian Backports is also available on the ISO. This can make the difference between the image booting or not, or between having internet connectivity or not, and it makes it more likely that SpiralLinux will work across the entire range of a user's computers.