There are great setup guides for Debian, as well as a full security / hardening guide. It's a bit more work but very rewarding to learn - and ultimately it's so well documented the experience is more like following a cook book than having to invent or figure things out yourself. 

chairman_pretense

If you can't find info on Debian, all the Ubuntu information works for Debian too.

chaoticalHeavy

tech

for my Linux folks: what distribution(s) do you recommend for a n00b???

bitdern

very interesting! sounds it might be worth battling through some initial complexities of Debian to get to a more stable (+secure) experience