Get a distro with atomic updates, preferably an immutable one like Aurora[1]. Updates are automated and can't break your system. And in the rare event something does happen, you can easily boot the previous version right from the boot menu, no need for any scary commands or technical intervention.
I was thinking about setting up a package as part of the system build to do remote maintenance and I wondered if manually doing those updates every six months would be too long of a window. That way if something breaks, I can visit the customers location to fix it if I have to.
It can't. The device is in my room and making noise when on. If that device wakes up and wakes me up, it's either getting a force shutdown (breaking the update) or getting in the trash.
Plus the device is generally left in suspend mode, so shutting it down would interrupt my workflow.
Updates on Linux distros are not really a problem. You can work the whole time and just run updates in the background. You can even switch to a newer Linux kernel, without closing any userspace programs.
