Yeah, I think every Linux user switches distros over the years to find one that suits them best. It's always interesting (to me) to hear what path others have trod along the way.
I was lucky in that my girlfriend was much more deeply into Linux than I was when I decided to get rid of Windows altogether almost two years ago now. She was a big help. If I didn't know something, I'd just ask her. Unfortunately, I can't offer my girlfriend as a resource. ;-)
Even though I consider myself a geek (and you sound like you are as well), this book, Ubuntu for Non-Geeks, helped me out:
You're lucky with the gf mate. Mine just keeps asking me, "What are these secret clever things you keep doing with the computer?"
The reason I want to move away from Windows is to learn more about how Linux works and use it to do more fun things. I've used Ubuntu a few times and I liked it. But I find because it's deliberately aimed at non-geeks, it has too much fluff.
And that's why I like xfce. It's a really minimal, simple desktop - less distraction for me. You should try it.
And "minimal" here doesn't mean something necessarily aimed at power users like fluxbox, ratpoison or awesome.
I've always thought of xfce as a sort of gnome-lite-- it looks just as pretty and has all the gui toolbars and widgets that you would expect, but uses a tiny fraction of the resources. It's a great desktop environment for laptops and older computers.
I was lucky in that my girlfriend was much more deeply into Linux than I was when I decided to get rid of Windows altogether almost two years ago now. She was a big help. If I didn't know something, I'd just ask her. Unfortunately, I can't offer my girlfriend as a resource. ;-)
Even though I consider myself a geek (and you sound like you are as well), this book, Ubuntu for Non-Geeks, helped me out:
http://www.amazon.com/Ubuntu-Linux-Non-Geeks-Project-Based-G...
Since you're using Debian, a lot of that will apply, too.
I also just read a whole lot of man pages and used the great Ubuntu Guide site:
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Intrepid
And I used the Linux command reference PDF here:
http://fosswire.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/fwunixref.pdf
And of course a lot of Googling.
It does bother me that Ubuntu is coming to mean "Linux" to a lot of people, but it is a good distro.
What do you like about xfce? Never tried it myself.