I want to move my laptop from Windows Vista to a Linux distro (like Debian for ease of apt-get like installation management). I am a developer and my wife is a Facebook user (with lot of friends and a bunch of Zynga games that she plays). We rely on the laptop solely for our purpose. So here are the needs and wants:<p>1. Easy to use for a non programmer. Who does not know anything related to software.
2. A programmer paradise, should have ease of setup: Java, Ruby and Python. Apache web server and Tomcat eclipse etc. Version control like svn and git.(Please bare with me if I have mentioned some trivial things here)<p>3. Last but not the least easy to install and maintain.<p>So which Linux distro should I go with?<p>Thanks for your input in advance.
Ease of use does not come from a distro. It comes from how good you are at setting up desktop environment.<p>As for developers paradise, i honestly doubt that debian-like system would be what you need. If you are serious about writing code, then you most likely will require custom compilations of programs. And ability to recompile them with same setting, when new version comes out (and as soon as possible).<p>Additionally, most of the "user friendly" debians have this notion of automatic updates. I honestly hope that you can see what harm can come from this.<p>I would recommend for you to check some other distros and not to limit yourself to debians.<p>P.S. if something is "hard" to install or maintain, it only means that you have decided not to send time on understanding how it works.
I expected you to include something about why you were looking for something "Debian-like" due to Debian not being an option. My answer to your question, is of course, Debian!