Generally speaking, I advise people new to Linux to stay away from DebianPerhaps they should stay away from Debian *installers*... and then only if they are a dyed-in-the-wool Windows user. But once the distro is installed, it's easier to maintain than other distros... which is where, IME, more trouble occurs. From a personal standpoint, I would have rather dealt with Debian as a n00b. If you stick with Stable (or even Testing, for that matter), not much is going to bite you, and a lot of things that give newbies trouble (dependencies, library versions, fux0red config files from upgrading the wrong things, etc) just plain Go Away.
Just my opinion, obviously. YMMV.