Is Debian right for me?

[Allophyl]

So, I've spent several hours trying to figure out which distro to install. I've taken the quizes, I've read the descriptions on distrowatch as well as several reviews of the major distributions. But I still don't really know for sure which is the best for me. I'm thinking Debian is the closest to what I want, but it doesn't feel quite right.

I'm a 2nd year CS student, and have some experience with linux (I usually do my coding on the Ubuntu machines at school, and I've tried out Mandrake on my laptop) but not much beyond emacs, gnuplot and some very basic shell commands and bash scripting.

So I'm looking for a distribution that I can truly learn about linux with. One that won't throw me into the deep end where I have no idea what I'm doing like Gentoo, Slackware or Arch, but which provides better access under the hood than Ubuntu, Mandriva or Mint. One that is relatively easy to install and use, but which I can later dig into and play around with as I learn. I've gotten the impression that Debian is much closer to the latter distros in terms of configurability so while it seems easy enough to use I don't know if I'll be able to learn as much as I'd like to from it.

I'm also looking for something that is stable and lightweight. I don't want the system randomly crashing or for applications to hang for 30s while I'm in the middle of something important. It should boot up fairly quickly and not have to load umpteen dozen different apps every time it starts up - It should be free of bloat, and I'd like to be able to just open my laptop and go. Debian certainly seems to fit the bill for both of these, though I'm not sure just how lightweight and bloat-free it is.

Out of all the distros I've seen, Debian seems the best for me, but I do have concerns that isn't quite what I'm looking for. Is it? And if not, are there other distros out there that might be better suited for me?

[oz]

Is Debian right for me?

Welcome to the forums!

Actually, it should be you telling us if Debian is right for you because nobody here can decide that for you. If you've gone through the quizzes as indicated above, you should try the quizz recommended distros first and if you don't like those distros, you should branch out on your on and try others until you find one that you feel is most right for you and your computer hardware. DistroWatch.com has a listing of distros that are ranked by page hits if you should want to see what other users are interested in checking out.

Lots of Linux users have been "distro hoppers" for months and months, or maybe even years in some cases until they find the distro that feels just right to them. Most distributions are freely downloaded so it costs nothing more than some of your time and some blank disks to see how each distribution looks and feels. Of course, you can learn something about Linux during these installations.

Whatever route you should take, we do hope you are able to find exactly what you are looking for.

[hazel]

So I'm looking for a distribution that I can truly learn about linux with. One that won't throw me into the deep end where I have no idea what I'm doing like Gentoo, Slackware or Arch, but which provides better access under the hood than Ubuntu, Mandriva or Mint.

Debian is considered middle of the road: not an expert's system like Gentoo but more hands on than Ubuntu.

One that is relatively easy to install and use, but which I can later dig into and play around with as I learn.

I would recommend the "netinst" installation. You burn a mini-CD which installs a minimal system, then you download whatever else you want. If you choose the "desktop" package, you get gnome. If you want a lightweight alternative, you can just download xorg and a suitable window manager.

I'm also looking for something that is stable and lightweight. I don't want the system randomly crashing or for applications to hang for 30s while I'm in the middle of something important.

Oh, I do sympathise! Debian comes in three branches: stable (currently Lenny), testing (currently Squeeze) and unstable (Sid). The stable branch is very stable but a bit out-of-date. Testing is fairly stable and contains more recent packages. With your tastes, you definitely don't want unstable.

It should boot up fairly quickly and not have to load umpteen dozen different apps every time it starts up - It should be free of bloat, and I'd like to be able to just open my laptop and go.

Well, Debian is certainly a lot less bloated than Ubuntu or Fedora. And you can always take out background daemons that you don't use. But for something really fast, Arch and Crux beat Debian hands down. This is a well-known Linux trade-off: the easier a system is to use, the more complex it will be underneath and the slower it will run.

[reed9]

I'm also looking for something that is stable and lightweight. I don't want the system randomly crashing or for applications to hang for 30s while I'm in the middle of something important. It should boot up fairly quickly and not have to load umpteen dozen different apps every time it starts up - It should be free of bloat, and I'd like to be able to just open my laptop and go. Debian certainly seems to fit the bill for both of these, though I'm not sure just how lightweight and bloat-free it is.

If you, as Hazel suggested, use the netinstall CD to give yourself a nice base distro, Debian is as lightweight or bloated as you make it. You can build up the system as you like. If you go with a lightweight window manager like pekwm over the more feature rich but heavy desktop environments like GNOME or KDE, it will be quite light.

Actually, Ubuntu also has a minimal install CD, where you can build up a custom Ubuntu system. Crunchbang Linux is an example of a whole distro based off the ubuntu minimal install.

Here is a list of lightweight apps you might consider, whichever distro you go with.
Lightweight Applications - ArchWiki

Just FYI, I disagree with this list on a couple of points. I don't consider VLC, SMPlayer, or Deluge to be particularly lightweight.

Two apps not on the list that I use are Gliv (an image viewer) and Mupdf (the only truly lightweight pdf viewer I've found).

[lugoteehalt]

Reading your post it sounds like Debian would be perfect. You can rip off configuration files from Ubuntu live CDs or from forums like this. It is highly programmer friendly.