Hey dust, I have been using linux for about 24 years ago and I’m gonna explain it to you straight here.
debian is rock solid. It’s great for servers. It’s also great for laptops: That is laptops where you don’t really care about having anything bleeding edge. I need tmux, a few compilers, vim, and a browser. Debian!
I’ve got a kid and get at best 45 minutes per week to code on side projects. My system can never be broken. I use Debian on my Linux laptop and my droplet server. No surprises.
But if you want to occasionally get a brand new desktop environment hot off the presses, Debian‘s gonna work against you. I think Ubuntu mint is great.