Thats what I disagree with. With at least some systems, debian wont need any setting up.

Flash player isnt something some people really 'need', and even if you do want/need flash its easy to get from synaptic.

Like I said above, additional drivers isn't 'needed' either in a lot of cases.

As for ubuntu (and peppermint IIRC), it doesnt come with DVD codecs installed, and if you find the community documentation it says this-

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/

Which is hardly 'click->click'.

If you refuse to configure the system without just clicking a mouse, then linux in general isnt a great choice.

You seem to not understand whole picture but i don't want repeat myself. I am speaking about non-geek people and people who want stuff work directly after standart install(and they deserve it btw) or with very less pain after(ubuntu and mint type does it). If one can configure system it's cool but it's wrong to think this method applies for everyone. Long story short - Debian is for people who want learn or don't mind get hands dirty sometimes otherwise it's not something to use unless someone like you will configure it for them because they won't do it themselves but this is important when choosing distribution. If you will still not accept diferrence then i give up.
I'm sorry but this is BS assumption not worth arguing anymore since internet is full or proof against this nonscence.

testing

So you mean Windows users or people with a Windows mentality. Interesting because you cannot just go and install Windows and expect it to work out of the box unless you have all the required drivers, which odds on bet Windows won't have on a standard install disk, so you need to find them and then install them.

Have you tried install Windows recently? Not to mention Windows comes preinstalled in most cases when buying PC or laptop. FYI it does work out of the box. Sure the extra drivers and preffered software maybe needed but it works. Besides to install same Nvidia driver on Windows u need run driver from included CD(we are speaking about legal stuff not pirated) or download .exe file from nvidia website and run it. Ubuntu also gives option install with click. For Debian u need..manual(which may not work if newbie will install it)?
http://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers
Relax guys. I'm not saying anything bad about Debian or saying Ubuntu is better. It's great but for person who wants simple OS it isn't that simple as it could be unless someone else does dirty work for them.

Windows does not work well when freshly installed from a MS install disk, at least for Vista. Have not and will not be installing 7 so I do not know about that.

Finding the video drivers on a MS machine without them is very tiring on the eyes. A lot of hardware needs drivers. You can spend as much as 2 days getting the stuff to be recognized and working on machines designed for MS with hardware designed for MS. Thank God I don't do that anymore.

When I first installed Linux I had, out of the box with an Ubuntu 8.04.1 install disk, on a box made and preinstalled with Vista (that never worked very well), a working box except for my dial up connection which did take some time.

The last computer we bought came pre-installed with Ubuntu 9.10. As opposed to the Vista machine (which runs great, out of the box on Debian now)which required several reboots to work, the Sys76 box fired up and was ready to go as soon as plugged in.

The problem is the lack of understanding language. Intuitive does not mean, as used in relation to computers all the time, something you are used to. It means you can sit down, look at it, and have some clue as to what to do. Sit Ben Franklin in front of a computer and see if it is intuitive to him to turn it on.

I suspect that you probably are not real familiar with livestock. I bet if you visited here and were in the corral with an angry bull it would, on the other hand, be intuitive to go over the corral fence in a hurry.

Everything on any computer or OS requires a manual if you are going to have a clue.

I sure am not a geek or know much about PCs and operating-systems and all.
For me Debian is easy and allways was easy.
I guess it depends on the hardware (on the ppc it was a wee bit of trouble, on the new laptop i had to go for a 38-kernel, all three PCs work out of the box, and the same is valid for my two stoneage-laptops, but on one i got problems with video. As it comes with 64MB i run it cli anyway).

Sooner or later you will run into trouble with Ubuntu, and you will have to learn a bit more than click-click.
Sooner or later the same will happen with any Windows-product (as an example sound works seldom for me, WinXP and Win7).
I assume the same is valid for any OS and any application.
For me Debian is the perfect mixture of being easy and being configurable. But i don't know much other operating systems (little bit of Fedora, little bit of Sabayon, little bit of BSD, little bit of Mandrive and a lot of Debian-based). If i was using nvidia i would probably have got other experiences.

Yes I have, I rebuild old unloved PCs for people and give them away. Often the same people will have a legit copy of XP or Vista (and I have even done it with a supplied version of 7) and each time I have to take the cover off the case and get the motherboard details so I can get the drivers. Windows does not work out of the box like you are suggesting and the only times it does it when it is an OEM (Dell, Acer etc) pre-installed version which comes with so much bloat ware and trial ware it isn't funny.

You dont seem to by getting my point....

Congratulations, you're turning a signle thread asking for advice on a technical linux forum into a generic 'is ubuntu better than debain for newbie' response. Since vayira (the OP) is even asking here means you are not dealing with a 'toally unsupported' situation. They have been a ubuntu user for a while, I'm pretty sure that apt-get and/or synaptic are familiar to them.

There is a whole forum here made to make life easier for linux user, and I'm sure that any minor problems can be figured out. To treat everybody who is using ubuntu as incapable of running debian is pretty arrogant, and not at all realistic IMO.

I dont think that apt-getting, or using synaptic to get flash is that big adeal.....its probably just as easy, if not easier than doing it with windows provided that you know the basic process. GPU drivers shouldnt be a problem, but if the OP does have a netbook with an ATI/AMD or nVidia GPU, and doesnt think that the open soruce dirvers are doing the job, installing the closed drivers should not be that hard.

I dont think its nonsense at all. Its no fun doing everything from a GUI. Try finding 'flash' in synaptic without typing 'flash' into search. Its do-able, but its a lot easier to use a keyboard and GUI rather than pure GUI at times.

Well I'm sorry to have started off such a controversy! I shan't wade into the debate myself but it has thrown up a new related question for me.

If I install debian would I be able use the ubuntu restricted repositories to get my hands on all the extra stuff I'm likely to need... flash, nvidia drivers, DVD & MP3 codecs etc?? If not what would be the recommended repositories for all that kind of stuff in Debian?

I'm not frightened of the terminal, but I do like using synaptic to do most of my installation.

.

Debians own repositories will get you the majority of what you want, just make sure to enable non-free and contrib. Apart from that debian multimedia is the next best source.

The Debian Multimedia repository makes life much easier.

http://debian-multimedia.org/

nvidia drivers and flash are in the "non-free" part of Debian's archive. Ensure that your sources.list includes contrib and non-free. Flash is called flashplugin-nonfree or something along those lines...

Synaptic is default in the GNOME install and only an apt-get away in the other major desktops.

I would encourage you to try other desktops in Debian. Ubuntu's spins are poorly maintained. Debian + KDE or Debian + XFCE are cleaner, faster, less buggy alternatives to Kubuntu and Xubuntu respectively. Debian is also chock full of minimal window managers-- openbox, icewm, pekwm, fluxbox, wmii, I've tried them all.

Don't mix Ubuntu packages into Debian.
They are not compatible,and as mentioned above Debian has most things you'll need in the repositories anyway.