[StudentStuff]

I had very similar reasons for starting with Ubuntu, but when it came right down to it, all the software that I thought would only work on Ubuntu works just fine on Debian.

Hardware support wise, newer kernels generally come to Debian sooner too, as the latest stable kernel generally gets into Sid a week or so after release, then added to backports for Debian Stable after a few weeks. Currently you can nab 4.14 from backports on Debian Stable, and 4.15 should be coming down the pike shortly (seeing as its just a few days old).