[Solved] Which Debian-based OS is right for me?

[Uewd]

Which Debian-based OS is right for me?
I want to compare Debian-based Operating Systems between:
1. Less manual maintenance required.
2. Stability.
3. Speed.
4. Fast availability of bug fixes and security updates.

Thank you.

[AlbertP]

You don't need a Debian-based OS for this. There's also Linux Mint 10 which does not have many bugs anymore (Mint 11 still contains some minor ones).

Please tell us how many RAM memory your computer has, and what the speed of the processor is.

If your computer has at least 512 MB of RAM, it should be able to run Mint 10 or normal Mint Debian.
For 256 to 512 MB, I recommend Mint 10 LXDE, or Mint Xfce (Debian-based).
If it has less than 256, you can use Antix but I recommend to put some extra MB's of RAM into it.

Security updates are available fast on almost any Ubuntu or Debian-based Linux OS. And all Debian Testing-based OS'es will get the security and bugfix updates at the same time, when Debian releases the fix. This is often done in a couple of days after the bug has been filed.

About manual maintenance. I'd recommend an Ubuntu-based OS if you want to get rid of maintenance. If Ubuntu works once, it also works a second time and keeps working, because it's not rolling: it will not automatically update to a newer version which may break something. Updates will only include bugfixes and security fixes. Mint 10 or 11 is a good choice.

If you want stability, Ubuntu-based is probably a good choice, again because it isn't rolling and there won't appear many new bugs after the initial ones have been fixed. Mint 10 is quite stable in my opinion. But Debian also does not crash very often.
These OS'es are based on a stable Linux Kernel which makes them all quite stable.

And the speed. This depends completely on the speed of your hardware. If a regular Mint 10/11 or Mint Debian is too slow for you, you can install Mint 10 LXDE. This is already much faster than most Windows versions. If you still want somthing faster then you should get a very light-weight OS like Antix.

You can try all Mints when booting from CD/DVD. Note that Mint is much slower when running from CD, so you should not drop a Mint flavour just because the CD is slow. It is not Mint that is slow by itself: it's your CD reader which is often much slower than a regular harddisk.
But you can use the CD to try out things like using the menu and the file manager.

[MALsPa]

Of course, Mint has to be considered a Debian-based distro, when it comes down to it. Unless you don't consider Ubuntu to be Debian-based.

[Robin]

Ubuntu is much easier to set up and configure than Debian is! Ubuntu has "tamed" Debian and brought Debian's power and awesomeness to "us ordinary folks." It's great, but that ease and simplicity comes at a cost. There's a loss of efficiency and speed (yet I never noticed any difference, even on my very modest 6-year-old Dell desktop Celeron with it's paltry 512 mb of RAM).

However: The Long-Term-Support (LTS) versions of Ubuntu are far better for stability. Updates of the Ubuntu-based LTS distros are not nearly as likely to break something as any "rolling release" version of Debian, unless it is Debian Stable (currently version 6.0, "Squeeze"). Those rolling ones that are based on Debian Testing or Debian Unstable (which includes Ubuntu's non-LTS versions) are far more troublesome.

Hope that helps a little,
Robin

[Uewd]

Thank you all for helping me. All your answers solved my question?

[AlbertP]

I think so, as you have added [solved].

[Elisa]

Ubuntu is much easier to set up and configure than Debian is!Robin

...says 'a newbie'

If u r thinking of a debian based distro, so the best debian based distro is - Debian But stable aka Squeeze.

Debian stable is really kinda a lot - stable, however the main reason why called stable is due frozen apps versions. However, you can even install some new of them.
In generally, debian squeeze is mostly for a bit skilled users however even a newbie can try to install it but the newbie MUST a lot to read, study to understand, why is debian not configured after its install as Mint is (set with many candies etc. ).

If you follow that condition, it's possible even for a newbie to have a stable and cool distro

[AlbertP]

Still, I'd prefer Ubuntu-based Mint 9, 10 or 11 for a newbie. But of course Debian can also be used.

There are some reviews of distros on www.desktoplinuxreviews.com and www.distrowatch.com, if you like to know the difference between distributions.