Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would tend to say go with Debian, if that is your aim. While I understand that some of the Ubuntu long-term support releases have stable package bases, I have had nowhere near the same level of comfort with an Ubuntu LTS as I have with Debian stable, especially when boxes are to be migrated to newer releases. With Ubuntu the LTS to LTS hop is often not successful, usually for lack of testing, whereas I've rolled fr…
Thanks for all the replies.
Sure. If you have any problems the Debian mailing lists are excellent, the Ubuntu forums are good and I'm very often polite via email if you have a question that isn't very tightly focused.