Why not try Void. It’s fairly up to date regarding all packages, including KDE and it’s rock solid.
He really insists on debian-based, I don’t really know why. And, while Void IS really solid, it isn’t exactly known for the most expansive package collection. Xournal, for example, is not available through XBPS (there is a xournal package, but it just installs xournal++), which is one of the programs he likes a lot. I told him it’s on nix, but he doesn’t want to use nix.
But I agree, Void is amazing, I use it on my laptop. One little-known cool feature of Void is that its official docker images come in busybox/musl libc, busybox/glibc, and coreutils/glibc variants, it gives you a nice scale from most minimalist to most compatible.
He could make his own templates for the packages… he doesn’t even have to rebuild. If he could at least find a .deb or .rpm package of the app/package he likes, he could use that and just repackage. That’s what I do for stuff I can’t find… and update them from time to time (like every few months or so).
