[tlug] Bye to Suse, Hello to Kubuntu & Debian

["Lyle H Saxon" <llletters@example.com>]

A while back, I got a couple of desktop-user friends set up with Suse Linux, and they were happy enough with it... until recently.  Both of them started with 9.x and then upgraded to 10.x, and in both cases, (after happily using 10.x for awhile) the updater stopped working.  They began getting an error message about something not having succeeded (they didn't write down the specific message, so I don't know what it was), and from there on, every security patch attempt crashed, producing the same (I think) error message.  Not being able to update their machines and since they were using older versions of Suse anyway, I recommended going to Suse 11, but this didn't work out.  Some details:

Case #1:  Before giving up on Suse, I recommended first backing up all files, and then doing a clean install of Suse-11.  This went okay, and then, with the very first update, things went wrong.  There were messages about expected packages not being found and when he tried rebooting the machine, it wouldn't boot all the way, but gave an error message about something being broken and then shut down.
     No doubt it was something repairable and the system probably could have been booted in safe mode, but my friend was disgusted with Suse at this point and wanted to try something else - so I suggested Kubuntu 8.10, which worked out fine, excepting he finds KDE 4.1 a bit weird and maybe over-automated, but once he's past the learning curve, it'll probably be to his liking (he never even had a chance to try it with Suse 11, as it was broken almost immediately).

Case #2:  After hearing what happened with my friend in case #1 (before Suse friend #2 had done anything), I suggested he try either Kubuntu or Debian, and he's gone with Kubuntu, although he doesn't like KDE 4.1.  He's thinking of either going with an older version of KDE or trying another distro.

And... me - case number three, I guess.  I've installed Debian 4.0 and I'm wondering if it's better to stay with this, or to go to Kubuntu 8.10.  After using automatic update arrangements with RedHat, Suse, & Kubuntu, I suddenly don't know how it's done with Debian (it's not the same, is it?).  I also don't know how to switch over to KDE and use that instead of the default Gnome, or how to install various packages.

I'm just beginning to look at the links on this page:
http://www.debian.org/doc/

Any suggestions on what is the best known reference material for someone new to Debian and how to get up to speed on it?

Lyle