Arox,
I feel your pain, If I was happy not looking under the bonnet systemd would be ok.
I found systemd-shim for jessie, stretch but not buster or sid, it broke a while ago. I'll experiment with sysvinit/xorg, but probably keep this one console/ssh.
My 'central repository' is the gateway/router which controls my local network. My view is the network is the centre, my workstation, servers and IoTs are only nodes.
I have 9 fixed ips for various devices around the home, it maintains sanity between different boxen feeding each other.
If you want control and your apps are available, try OpenBSD, very hands on, secure *nix, I still have to use Devuan for some cad/cam, but the rest in OpenBSD.