I have tried Debian, but I found that the software on the main version was out-of-date, and the testing version eventually broke during an update (which is when I abandoned it.) It's not something I'd recommend to a new Linux user.

The question is, do you really need the newer versions? If so, maybe check availability via backports or extrepo.

From my perspective a solid OS that stays out of my way most of the time outweighs the slight disadvantage of working with older software versions. YMMV.