I second this, LMDE is my goto version.I don't know about all of those, however truecrypt is no longer supported.

Then you have both firefox and chrome. Any particular reason for this?

Meanwhile, ... Linux is secure as far as I'm concerned.

You can encrypt your drive, the whole drive or just the data portion. Myself I prefer to not encrypt my system portion and only encrypt my data.

I do is I boot over live media and then mount my encrypted data drives.

No crazy reason, I encrypted my data because it has things like personal stuff and correspondence.T he main reason I live boot is because the hard drive long ago died and so I boot off of a USB stick.

I manually mount my encrypted data drives each time I use them. This means I'm current with my schemes which I use, I have to remember the secrets all the time as well as the options with which I created those drives. Meanwhile my system has no memory about these drives.

First thing I usually see about "how-to" guides for encrypted drives are: (1) how to do it, (2) how to mount it, and (3) how to set it to be automatically mounted at each boot!!! Whereupon I sort of cringe and wonder why bother if you're going to have information stored on your system to "remember" this drive and settings, you've given up some portion of the way to break into it, and saved that data on a permanent drive.

My personal recommendations are to start with a version of Linux or two, determine what you "like" and run those for a while to determine stability. We can tell you all we want about what we like, but I feel it really matters what works for you.

The only added thing, which many have already cited is to avoid edge distributions, like the version 17 of Ubuntu which you've started with, it is not their LTS. Same for any versions of MINT.

Other distributions, for instance those which are constant rolling distributions, you'll have to see if you like them and like the terms under which you use them. I do stick with what works for long times, I do upgrade, but also do that in a measured process. And believe me, I loved truecrypt, but also do realize that while you still can get it, it is outdated.

Start with a basis of "a" distribution, you want stability, then find what you consider to be stable. Then grow from there by adding software. I have NEVER encountered any distribution of Linux where I can't add software <insert-name-here> to it, where I can use that same software on most other Linux distributions. There is software which is hard to install and run, but for things like Chrome, or Firefox, they usually run on most, if not all Linux distributions. You only run into trouble if you most desperately desire to stay back 18 versions or something because you prefer it some exact way.

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I've never yet encountered a Linux distro that I considered to be unstable . . .

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Mandriva - 2010(??) was a bit unstable for me...

But if you go for a stable distro, such as Debian, but update some applications before Debian does, then it could cause trouble because you will be running an untested distro.

Either accept that a stable distro is probably not going to have the latest versions of programs, or go for a slightly less stable distro (such as a Ubuntu based one).

I would install any reasonable Linux and then install several Linux's as VM's and decide which you prefer.

Debian Sid was unstable way before they made an experimental branch. Things like openoffice would be broken for what seemed like six months at a time. But 1GB of updates a month over dialup was a bit rough to keep up on.

Many thanks for the added insight about rolling releases vs stable releases (I think I'd prefer stable releases), info on how backporting works (I think this will be helpful), and various tips and opinions provided by @JeremyBoden, @DavidMcCann, @Shadow_7, @wpeckham, @rtmistler, @sundialsvcs, and @RadicalDreamer (also, in response to your question RadicalDreamer, the hardware are both new with processors released in 2016q4 and 2017q1).

I've downloaded and installed the RC4 for Debian Stable 9 on my laptop to evaluate. I installed the cinnamon and the LXDE desktops and strongly prefer cinnamon - the good news is that it seems to be running quite stably on this system.

I plan to evaluate it thoroughly and then do a fresh install when Debian Stable 9 is officially released.

Installing this OS has brought up several new questions, and I'm sure more will come about the more I experiment with this temporary install. I will research them individually, and if I can't find a definitive answer or need clarification, I'll put up questions in new threads.

I doubt many would agree with me, but I use and like Fedora. It's been extremely stable for me over the last few years.

Holy Moly, all the cools kids are using 4.11.0 or better.

I'd use one of the red hat breed, fedora, centos, because it has the best security and everything else you want.

Why fresh install? Assuming you don't add non-standard repos or packages to it, the first updates you install to your 9 pre-release after the 9 release announcement would make your existing installation exactly equal to the official 9 release. The vast majority of packages you now have installed will not be changed for the official 9 release.

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In the past, I've chosen MATE over Cinnamon because it was supposed to be more reliable.

I also installed Scientific Linux as one of a few distros on one netbook. Just hearsay, but I'd read that it was ultra reliable.

This ^^

I highly recommend Slackware for stability, security and usability.

It is un-fooled around-with; software is provided with as little tinkering as possible; you get what the developers intended, there is no branding. For example, Firefox comes without any distribution branding and works as inteneded. You can add the NoScript add-on to it so you don't have to deal with Java Scripts. And you'll like the look and feel of it.

You can download Slackware from LQ, you can buy a subscription so that, when a new release is ready you'll receive a DVD that you can load and go (see the Slackware Store).

There are a great number of additional software packages available at SlackBuilds.org ready to go.

The default window manager is KDE (which I do not care for, I prefer Xfce for its clean, efficient and fast features. KDE is bloateed, full of eye-candy, Xfce is not. Your choice during installation.

I've been running Slackware for years, have no troule and am a happy capmper that does not want to go anywhere else, simply because I don't need to go anywhere else.

Hope this helps some.

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