I'll have to have a look at kiosk mode as that sounds like a useful addition.
My experience was:
I loaded a slightly cut down version of Raspbian to run on a Pi 2B as the kiosk.
It couldn't handle the load of producing the required graphical display.
I swapped it for a Pi 3B and used the already programmed SD card.
It worked straight away.
I set up a batch file that starts Chrome, loads two tabs, METAR and RADAR, makes it go full screen then switches between the tabs every 45 seconds.
This means there is no need for a mouse or keyboard, or people who aren't familiar with Linux to try and get it to work. It just gets switched on at the beginning of the day, and switched off at the end of it.
The Pi 3B is HDMI, but HDMI -> VGA adaptors are available very cheaply on eBay, so old, first generation flat screens can be recycled.
Details of setting up a Pi in kiosk mode are available on the Internet.
Pi 3B has on board WiFi. Plug in a USB keyboard and mouse to make things easy.
I use Raspbian OS because I use Linux elsewhere and the Linux I use is a derivative of Debian, Raspbian is Debian on a Pi. Packages are .deb.
HTH.